ON THE SOUTH COAST. The Latest Poem by Charles Algernon Swinburne. TO THEODORU WATTS. Written for the October "Illustrated English Magazine."

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 423, 27 November 1889, Page 3

ON THE SOUTH COAST. The Latest Poem by Charles Algernon Swinburne. TO THEODORU WATTS. Written for the October "Illustrated English Magazine."

Hills arid vaille> s -where April rallies his laliant squadron of flowers and biids. Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the land engirds. Fields and downs that the sunrise crowns with life diviner tl.an lives in words. Day by day of resurgent May salute the sun with sublime acclaim. Change and brighten with hours that lighten and darken, girdled with cloud or flame ; Earth's fair face in alternate grace beams, -blooms, and lowers, and is yet the same. Twice each day the divine sea's play makas glad with glory that comes and goes, Field and street that her waves keep gweet, when past the bounds of their old repose. Fast and fierce in renewed reverse, the foamflecked estuary ebbs and flows. Broad and bold through the stays of old staked fast with the trunks of the wildvrood Iroc, Up from shoreward, impelled far forward, by marsh and meadow, bv lawn and lea. Inland still at her own wild will swells, rolls, an revels the surging sea. Strong as time, and as faith sublimr— clothed round with, shadows of hopes and feavs. Nights and morrows, and joys and sorrows, alive with passion of prayers and tears,— Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight hundred waxing and waning years. Towers set square to the storms of air and change of season that glooms and glows. Wall and roof of it tempe&t-proof, and equal ever to suns and snows, Bright with riche3 of radiant niche? and pillars smooth as a straight stem grows. Aisle and nave that the whelming wave of time has whelmed not or touched or neared. Arch and vault without stain or fault, by hands of craftsmen we know not reared, Time beheld them, and time was quelled ; and change passed by them as one that feared. Time that fiies as a dream.and dies as dreams that die with the sleep they feed, Here-aloneina garb of stone incarnate stands as a god indeed, Stern and fair, and of strength to bear all burdens mortal to man's frail seed. Men and years aye as leaves or tears that storm or sorrow is fain to shed : These go by theas winds thatsigh,andnone takes note of them quick or dead : Time, whose breath is their birth and death, folds here his pinions, and bows his head. Still the sun thatbeheld begun the Work wrought here of unwearied hands. SSees, as then, though the Red King's men held ruthless rule over lawless lands. Stand their massive design, impassive, pure and proud as a virgin stands. ' Statelier still as the years fulfil their count, subserving her sacred state, £rows the hoary grey- church whose story silence utters and age makes great ; si -atelier seems it than shines in dreams the face unveiled of unvanquished fate. Fate more high than the star-shown sky, more d ?cp than water unsounded, shines Keen and far as the final star on souls that se« ?k not for charms or signs ; Yet n lore bright is the love-shown light of me tt's hands lighted in songs or shrines. I ove »i id trust that the grare's deep dust can soil not. neither may fear put out, Witnca« yet that their record set stands fast, though years be as hosts in rout, Spent and slain : but the signs remain that beat back darkness and cast forth doubt. Men that wrought by the grace of thought and toil things goodlier than praise dare trace. Fair as all that the world may call most fair, save only the sea's own face. Shrines or songs that the world's change wrongs not, live by grace of their own gift's grace. Dead, their names that the night reclaimsalive, their works that the day relumes - Sink and stand, as in stone and sand engraven ; none may behold their tombs : # Nijrhts and days shall record their praise while here this flower of their grafting blooms. Flowers more fair than the sun-thrilled air bids laugh and lighten and wax and rise. Fruit more bright than the fervent light sustains with, strength from the kindled skies, Flowers and frnittiiatthedeathless root of mans ' love rears though the man's name dies. Stately stands it, the work of bauds unknown of ; statelier, afar and near. Blse around it the heights that bouad &ny landward gaze from tbe seaboard here , JDownn tfcat swerve and aspire, in cu*ve an* change of heights that the dawu holds dear,

Dawn falls fair on the grey walls there confronting dawn, on the low green lea, Lone and sweet as for fairies' feet held sacred, silent and strange and free, Wild and wet with its riils ; but yot more fair falls dawn on the fairer sea. Eastward, round by the high green bound of hills that fold the remote Holds in. Strive and shine on the low &ca-lino fleet, waves and beams when the days begin; Westward rlo'v, when the days burn low, the sun that yields and the stars that win. Rose-red eve on the seas that heave smks fair as dawn when the 1 livst ray peers ; Winds are glancing troin sunbright Lancing to I Shorehain, crowned with the grace of j ears ; Shoreham. clad with the sunset, glad and gra\ c with glory that death reveres, Death, more proud than the king's heads bowed' before him, stronger than all things, bows Hero liis head as if death were dead, and kingship plucked troin his crownlcss brows, Life hath here such a faes of cheer as change appals not and time avow*. Skies fulfilled with the sundown, stilled and' splendid— spread as a ilowor that spreadsPave with raver device and fairer than heaven's the luminous oystci-bcds. Grass-embanked, and in square plo's ranked, inlaid with gems that the sundown sheds. Squares moi c bright and with lovelier light than heaven that kindled it shines with shine Warm and soil as the dome aloft, buthcuvonliei* yet than the sun's own shine : Heaven is huh, but the water-sky lit here seems deeper and more divine. Flowers on flowers, that the -whole world's f bowers may show not, heie may the sunset I show, Lightly graven iv the waters paven with ghostly gold by the clouds aglow Bright as love is the vault abo\o, but lovelier lightens the wave below. Rosy grey, or as fiery spray full-plumed, or greener than emerald, gleams Plot by plot as the skies allot for each its glory, ill vine as dreams Lit with lire of appeased desire which sounds the secret of all that 6oems : Dreams that show what we fain would know, and know not save by the grace of sleep. Sleep whoso h.uids have lemoved the bands that eyes long \\ aking and fain to weep Feel fast bound on them— light around them strange, and darkness above them steep Yet no vision that heals, division of love from love and renews awhile Life and breath in the lips where death has quenched the spirit of vpae.ch and smile. Shows on earth, or in heaven's mid mirth, where no fears enter or doubts dehle. Aught more fair than the radiant air and water here by the twilight wed, Here made one by the waning sun tvlioso last love quickens to roaebright red Half the ci own or the sott high down that rears to northw ard its wood-girt head. There, when dny is at height of sway, men's eyes who stand, us we oft have stood. High where towers .\yith its world of flowers the golden spinuy (hat flunks the wocd. See before and around them shore and seaboard glad as their gifts arc good. Higher and higher to the north aspire the green smooth-swelling uncndinsr downs; East and west on the brave earth's breast glow girdle-iewols of gleaming towns ; Southward bhining.^he lands declining subside in peace that the sea's light crown?. Westwaid -wide in its fruitful pride the plain lies lordly with plenteous grace ; ! Fair as dawn s when the Reids and lawns desire her, glitters the glad land's face ; Eastward yet is the sole sign set of elder days and a lordlier 1 ace. Down beneath us af.ir, where seethe in wilder weather the tides aflovv, Hurled up hither and drawn down thither in quest of rest that they may not know, Still as n dew on a. flo\\ ay the blue, broad stream now sleeps in the fields below. jMxlg and bland jn the fair green land it smiles a d takes to its heart the sky ; Scarce the mcads'and the fens, the reeds and grasses, still as they btand or lie. Wear the palm of a statelier calm that rests on Yiaters^Datnass them by. • ,- , Yet shall these, when the winds and seas of equal days and co-equal nights Rage, rejoice and uplift a voice whose sound is even ab a sword that smites. Felt and heard as a doomsman'b a\ ord from scaw ard reaches to landwaid eights. Lift their heart up and take their part of triumph swollen and strong with raire, Rage elate with desire and great with pride that tempest and storm assuage ; So their chime in the ear of time has rung from age to rekindled age. Fair and dear is the landS face hero, and fair man's work as a mau's-inay be ; Dear and fair as the sunbright air is here the record that speaks him free; Free by birth of a sacred earth, and regent ever of all the sea.