Poems

 Poems by Algernon Charles Swinburne, 231 pages

He offers his tithe.

     The sea gives her shells to the shingle,

          The earth gives her streams to the sea;

     They are many, but my gift is single,

          My verses, the first fruits of me.

Swinburne has been called the "last of the giants", and indeed he stands tall at the end of Romanticism and the beginning of Decadence, willing to be damned for love's spite or sake.

     But you would have felt my soul in a kiss,

          And known that once if I loved you so well;

     And I would have given my soul for this

          To burn forever in burning hell.

Death has closed the circle on Swinburne's world of flesh, but delight has not yet yielded wholly to disgust, nor heartache to horror.

     Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour,

          To think on things that are well outworn?

     Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower,

          The dream foregone and the deed forborne?