Poems and Ballads (second series)/Winter in Northumberland

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

FOUR SONGS OF FOUR SEASONS.

I.

WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLAND.

 

i.

Outside the garden

The wet skies harden;
The gates are barred on
The summer side:
'Shut out the flower‑time,
Sunbeam and shower‑time;
Make way for our time,'
Wild winds have cried.
Green once and cheery,
The woods, worn weary,
Sigh as the dreary
Weak sun goes home:

A great wind grapples
The wave, and dapples
The dead green floor of the sea with foam.

ii.

Through fell and moorland,

And salt‑sea foreland,
Our noisy norland
Resounds and rings;
Waste waves thereunder
Are blown in sunder,
And winds make thunder
With cloudwide wings;
Sea‑drift makes dimmer
The beacon's glimmer;
Nor sail nor swimmer
Can try the tides;
And snowdrifts thicken
Where, when leaves quicken,
Under the heather the sundew hides.

iii.

Green land and red land,

Moorside and headland,
Are white as dead land,
Are all as one;
Nor honied heather,
Nor bells to gather,
Fair with fair weather
And faithful sun:
Fierce frost has eaten
All flowers that sweeten
The fells rain‑beaten;
And winds their foes
Have made the snow's bed
Down in the rose‑bed;
Deep in the snow's bed bury the rose.

iv.

Bury her deeper

Than any sleeper;

Sweet dreams will keep her
All day, all night;
Though sleep benumb her
And time o'ercome her,
She dreams of summer,
And takes delight,
Dreaming and sleeping
In love's good keeping,
While rain is weeping
And no leaves cling;
Winds will come bringing her
Comfort, and singing her
Stories and songs and good news of the spring.

v.

Draw the white curtain

Close, and be certain
She takes no hurt in
Her soft low bed;

She feels no colder,
And grows not older,
Though snows enfold her
From foot to head;
She turns not chilly
Like weed and lily
In marsh or hilly
High watershed,
Or green soft island
In lakes of highland;
She sleeps awhile, and she is not dead.

vi.

For all the hours,

Come sun, come showers,
Are friends of flowers,
And fairies all;
When frost entrapped her,
They came and lapped her
In leaves, and wrapped her
With shroud and pall;

In red leaves wound her,
With dead leaves bound her
Dead brows, and round her
A death‑knell rang;
Rang the death‑bell for her,
Sang, 'is it well for her,
Well, is it well with you, rose?' they sang.

vii.

O what and where is

The rose now, fairies,
So shrill the air is,
So wild the sky?
Poor last of roses,
Her worst of woes is
The noise she knows is
The winter's cry;
His hunting hollo
Has scared the swallow;
Fain would she follow
And fain would fly:

But wind unsettles
Her poor last petals;
Had she but wings, and she would not die.

viii.

Come, as you love her,

Come close and cover
Her white face over,
And forth again
Ere sunset glances
On foam that dances,
Through lowering lances
Of bright white rain;
And make your playtime
Of winter's daytime,
As if the Maytime
Were here to sing;
As if the snowballs
Were soft like blowballs,
Blown in a mist from the stalk in the spring.

ix.

Each reed that grows in

Our stream is frozen,
The fields it flows in
Are hard and black;
The water‑fairy
Waits wise and wary
Till time shall vary
And thaws come back.
'O sister, water,'
The wind besought her,
'O twin‑born daughter
Of spring with me,
Stay with me, play with me,
Take the warm way with me,
Straight for the summer and oversea.'

x.

But winds will vary,

And wise and wary

The patient fairy
Of water waits;
All shrunk and wizen,
In iron prison,
Till spring re‑risen
Unbar the gates;
Till, as with clamour
Of axe and hammer,
Chained streams that stammer
And struggle in straits
Burst bonds that shiver,
And thaws deliver
The roaring river in stormy spates.

xi.

In fierce March weather

White waves break tether,
And whirled together
At either hand,

Like weeds uplifted,
The tree‑trunks rifted
In spars are drifted,
Like foam or sand,
Past swamp and sallow
And reed‑beds callow,
Through pool and shallow,
To wind and lee,
Till, no more tongue‑tied,
Full flood and young tide
Roar down the rapids and storm the sea.

xii.

As men's cheeks faded

On shores invaded,
When shorewards waded
The lords of fight;
When churl and craven
Saw hard on haven
The wide‑winged raven
At mainmast height

When monks affrighted
To windward sighted
The birds full‑flighted
Of swift sea‑kings;
So earth turns paler
When Storm the sailor
Steers in with a roar in the race of his wings.

xiii.

O strong sea‑sailor,

Whose cheek turns paler
For wind or hail or
For fear of thee?
O far sea‑farer,
O thunder‑bearer,
Thy songs are rarer
Than soft songs be.
O fleet‑foot stranger,
O north‑sea ranger
Through days of danger
And ways of fear,

Blow thy horn here for us,
Blow the sky clear for us,
Send us the song of the sea to hear.

xiv.

Roll the strong stream of it

Up, till the scream of it
Wake from a dream of it
Children that sleep,
Seamen that fare for them
Forth, with a prayer for them;
Shall not God care for them,
Angels not keep?
Spare not the surges
Thy stormy scourges;
Spare us the dirges
Of wives that weep.
Turn back the waves for us:
Dig no fresh graves for us,
Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep.

xv.

O stout north‑easter,

Sea‑king, land‑waster,
For all thine haste, or
Thy stormy skill,
Yet hadst thou never,
For all endeavour,
Strength to dissever
Or strength to spill,
Save of his giving
Who gave our living,
Whose hands are weaving
What ours fulfil;
Whose feet tread under
The storms and thunder;
Who made our wonder to work his will.

xvi.

His years and hours,

His world's blind powers,

His stars and flowers,
His nights and days,
Sea‑tide and river,
And waves that shiver,
Praise God, the giver
Of tongues to praise.
Winds in their blowing,
And fruits in growing;
Time in its going,
While time shall be;
In death and living,
With one thanksgiving,
Praise him whose hand is the strength of the sea.