Fire for light and hell for heaven and psalms for paeans

[sovay]

This is (one of the reasons) why I love Swinburne.

Old and younger Gods are buried or begotten
From uprising to downsetting of thy sun,
Risen from eastward, fallen to westward and forgotten,
And their springs are many, but their end is one.
Divers births of godheads find one death appointed,
As the soul whence each was born makes room for each;
God by God goes out, discrowned and disanointed,
But the soul stands fast that gave them shape and speech.

Yeah.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I'll see your 'Last Oracle' and raise you the Chorus from 'Atalanta in Calydon' - for the famous opening line (When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces) and then - well, lines like this:

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remember'd is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

And more, and more. There is just so much Swinburne, and so much is about forgetting and rebirth, death and hope; and he can be high fantastical, and he can be positively vernacular, comic even, on the same themes:

And the best and the worst of this is
That neither is most to blame
If you have forgotten my kisses
And I have forgotten your name

- and oh, I'm just so glad I'm not the only one still reading him...

[sovay]

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remember'd is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

That was my first-found and still one of my all-time favorite pieces of Swinburne. It just makes me happy.