Studies in Song/After Nine Years

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

 

AFTER NINE YEARS

 

AFTER NINE YEARS.

TO JOSEPH MAZZINI.

Primâ dicte mihi, summâ dicende Camenâ.

 

i.

The shadows fallen of years are nine

Since heaven grew seven times more divine
With thy soul entering, and the dearth
Of souls on earth
Grew sevenfold sadder, wanting One
Whose light of life, quenched here and done,
Burns there eternal as the sun.

2.

Beyond all word, beyond all deed,

Beyond all thought beloved, what need
Has death or love that speech should be,
Hast thou of me?
I had no word, no prayer, no cry,
To praise or hail or mourn thee by,
As when thou too wast man as I.

3.

Nay, never, nor as any born

Save one whose name priests turn to scorn,
Who haply, though we know not now,
Was man as thou,
A wanderer branded with men's blame,

Loved past man's utterance: yea, the same,
Perchance, and as his name thy name.

4.

Thou wast as very Christ—not he

Degraded into Deity,
And priest-polluted by such prayer
As poisons air,
Tongue-worship of the tongue that slays,
False faith and parricidal praise:
But the man crowned with suffering days.

5.

God only, being of all mankind

Most manlike, of most equal mind

And heart most perfect, more than can
Be heart of man
Once in ten ages, born to be
As haply Christ was, and as we
Knew surely, seeing, and worshipped thee.

6.

To know thee this at least was ours,

God, clothed upon with human hours,
O face beloved, O spirit adored,
Saviour and lord!
That wast not only for thine own
Redeemer—not of these alone
But all to whom thy word was known.

7.

Ten years have wrought their will with me

Since last my words took wing for thee
Who then wast even as now above
Me, and my love.
As then thou knewest not scorn, so now
With that beloved benignant brow
Take these of him whose light wast thou.

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