ALGERNON 'ornia' iiATvl-Es )nal ty a m. .h-LWA Andrews .1 LAUS VENERIS 1866 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE LAUS VENERIS PORTLAND MAINE THOMAS B MOSHER MDCCCCIX FIRST EDITION, JULY, I9OO SECOND EDITION, JUNE, I909 CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ix LAUS VENERIS 3 APPENDIX : NOTE TO LAUS VENERIS . . 4I BIBLIOGRAPHY 44 2057164 PREFACE The following remarks are taken from the Notes on Poems and Reviews — that magnificent impeachment of his detractors which Swin- burne put forth shortly after the publication and during the temporary withdrawal of his Poems and Ballads (London, 1866). It may here be said once and for all that no word or line of Laus Veneris has ever been altered from the first to the latest edition. As it was originally given to the world so, in the words of Richard Grant White, it stands to-day — "an expres- sion of beauty and passion in this fearless old fashion ; naked, free and strong. Na- ked not for the nakedness, but for the sake of freedom, strength and beauty." PREFACE OF the poem in which I have attempted once more to embody the legend of Venus and her knight, I need say only that my first aim was to rehandle the old story in a new fashion. To me it seemed that the tragedy began with the knight's return to Venus — began at the point where hitherto it had seemed to leave off. The immortal agony of a man lost after all repentance — cast down from fearful hope into fearless despair — believing in Christ and bound to Venus — desirous of pen- itential pain, and damned to joyless pleasure — this, in my eyes, was the kernel and nucleus of a myth comparable only to that of the foolish virgins and bearing the same burden. The tragic touch of the story is this : that the knight who has renounced Christ believes in him; the lover who has em- braced Venus disbelieves in her. Vainly and in despair would he make the best of that which is the worst — vainly remonstrate with God, and argue on the side he would fain desert. Once accept or admit the least admixture of pagan worship, or of modern thought, and the whole story col- lapses into froth and smoke. It was not till my poem was com- pleted that I received from the hands of its author the admirable pamphlet of Charles Baudelaire on Wagner's Tannbaiiser. If any one desires to see, expressed in better words than I can command, the conception of the mediaeval Venus which it was my aim to put into verse, let him turn to the magnificent passage in which M. Baudelaire describes the fallen goddess, grown diabolic among ages that would not accept her as divine. In another point, as I then found. I concur with the great musician and his great panegj'rist. I have made Venus the one love of her knight's whole life, as IMary Stuart of Chastelard's; I have sent him, poet and soldier, fresh to her fierce embrace. Thus only both legend and symbol appear to me noble and significant. Light loves and harmless errors must not touch the elect of heaven or of hell. The queen of evil, the lady of lust, will endure no rival but God; and when the vicar of God rejects him, to her only can he return to abide the day of his judgment in weariness and sorrow and fear. A. C. SWINBURNE. LAUS VENERIS 1866 LAUS VENERIS ASLEEP or waking is it ? for her neck, Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck Wherein the pained blood fal- ters and goes out ; Soft, and stung softly — fairer for a fleck. But though my lips shut sucking on the place, There is no vein at work upon her face ; Her eyelids are so peaceable, no doubt Deep sleep has warmed her blood through all its ways. Ill Lo, this is she that was the world's delight ; The old grey years were parcels of her might ; The strewings of the ways wherein she trod Were the twain seasons of the day and night. IV Lo, she was thus when her clear limbs enticed All lips that now grow sad with kissing Christ, Stained with blood fallen from the feet of God, The feet and hands whereat our souls were priced. V Alas, Lord, surely thou art great and fair. But lo her wonderfully woven hair! And thou didst heal us with thy piteous kiss ; But see now, Lord ; her mouth is lovelier. VI She is right fair; what hath she done to thee ? Nay, fair Lord Christ, lift up thine eyes and see ; Had now thy mother such a lip — like this ? Thou knowest how sweet a thing it is to rae. VII Inside the Horsel here the air is hot; Right little peace one hath for it, God wot ; The scented dusty daylight burns the air, And my heart chokes me till I hear it not, VIII Behold, my Venus, my soul's body, lies With my love laid upon her gar- ment-wise. Feeling my love in all her limbs and hair And shed between her eyelids through her eyes. IX She holds my heart in her sweet open hands Hanging asleep ; hard by her head there stands, Crowned with gilt thorns and clothed with flesh like fire, Love, wan as foam blown up the salt burnt sands — X Hot as the brackish waifs of yel- low spume That shift and steam — loose clots of arid fume From the sea's panting mouth of dry desire ; There stands he, like one labour- ing at a loom. The warp holds fast across ; and every thread That makes the woof up has dry specks of red ; Always the shuttle cleaves clean through, and he Weaves with the hair of many a ruined head. XII Love is not glad nor sorry, as I deem; Labouring he dreams, and labours in the dream, Till when the spool is finished, lo I see His web, reeled off, curls and goes out like steam. XIII Night falls like fire ; the heavy lights run low, And as they drop, my blood and body so Shake as the flame shakes, full of days and hours That sleep not neither w'eep they as they go. XIV Ah yet would God this flesh of mine might be Where air might wash and long leaves cover me, Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers. Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea. XV Ah yet would God that stems and roots were bred Out of my weary body and my head, That sleep were sealed upon me with a seal, And I were as the least of all his dead. XVI Would God my blood were dew- to feed the grass, Mine ears made deaf and mine eyes blind as glass, My body broken as a turning wheel, And my mouth stricken ere it saith Alas ! XVII Ah God, that love were as a flower or flame, That life were as the naming of a name, That death were not more pitiful than desire, That these things were not one thing and the same ! XVIII Behold now, surely somewhere there is death : For each man hath some space of years, he saith, A little space of time ere time expire, A little day, a little way of breath. XIX And lo, between the sundawn and the sun, His day's work and his night's work are undone ; And lo, between the nightfall and the light. He is not, and none knoweth of such an one. XX Ah God, that I were as all souls that be, As any herb or leaf of any tree, As men that toil through hours of labouring night, As bones of men under the deep sharp sea. XXI Outside it must be winter among men ; For at the gold bars of the gates again I heard all night and all the hours of it, The wind's wet wings and fingers drip with rain. XXII Knights gather, riding sharp for cold; I know The ways and woods are strangled with the snow ; And with short song the maid- ens spin and sit Until Christ's birthnight, lily-like, arow. XXIII The scent and shadow shed about me make The very soul in all my senses ache ; The hot hard night is fed upon my breath. And sleep beholds me from afar awake. ID XXIV Alas, but surely where the hills grow deep, Or where the wild ways of the sea are steep, Or in strange places somewhere there is death, And on death's face the scattered hair of sleep. XXV There lover-like with lips and limbs that meet They lie, they pluck sweet fruit of life and eat ; But me the hot and hungry days devour. And in my mouth no fruit of theirs is sweet. XXVI No fruit of theirs, but fruit of my desire, For her love's sake whose lips through mine respire ; Her eyelids on her eyes like flower on flower. Mine eyelids on mine eyes like fire on fire. XXVII So lie we, not as sleep that lies by death, With heavy kisses and with happy breath ; Not as man lies by woman, when the bride Laughs low for love's sake and the words he saith. XXVIII For she lies, laughing low with love ; she lies And turns his kisses on her lips to sighs, To sighing sound of lips un- satisfied, And the sweet tears are tender with her eyes. XXIX Ah, not as they, but as the souls that were Slain in the old time, having found her fair ; • Who, sleeping with her lips upon their eyes, Heard sudden serpents hiss across her hair. XXX Their blood runs round the roots of time like rain : She casts them forth and gathers them again ; With nerve and bone she weaves and multiplies Exceeding pleasure out of extreme pain. XXXI Her little chambers drip with flower -like red, Her girdles, and the chaplets of her head, Her armlets and her anklets; with her feet She tramples all that winepress of the dead. XXXII Her gateways smoke with fume of flowers and fires, With loves burnt out and unas- suaged desires ; Between her lips the steam of them is sweet, The languor in her ears of many lyres. XXXIII Her beds are full of perfume and sad sound, Her doors are made with music, and barred round With sighing and with laughter and with tears, With tears whereby strong souls of men are bound. XXXIV There is the knight Adonis that was slain ; With flesh and blood she chains him for a chain ; The body and the spirit in her ears Cry, for her lips divide him vein by vein. XXXV Yea, all she slayeth ; yea, every man save me ; Me, love, thy lover that must cleave to thee Till the ending of the days and ways of earth, The shaking of the sources of the sea. 14 XXXVI Me, most forsaken of all souls that fell ; Me, satiated with things insa- tiable ; Me, for whose sake the extreme hell makes mirth, Yea, laughter kindles at the heart of hell. XXXVII Alas thy beauty! for thy mouth's sw^eet sake My soul is bitter to me, my limbs quake As water, as the flesh of men that weep, As their heart's vein whose heart goes nigh to break. Ah God, that sleep w-ith flow'er- sweet finger -lips Would crush the fruit of death upon my lips ; Ah God, that death would tread the grapes of sleep And wring their juice upon me as it drips. XXXIX There is no change of cheer for many days, But change of chimes high up in the air, that sways Rung by the running fingers of the wind ; And singing sorrows heard on hidden ways. XL Day smiteth day in twain, night sundereth night, And on mine eyes the dark sits as the light; Yea, Lord, thou knowest I know not, having sinned, If heaven be clean or unclean in thy sight. XLI Yea, as if earth were sprinkled over me, Such chafed harsh earth as chokes a sandy sea, Each pore doth yearn, and the dried blood thereof Gasps by sick fits, my heart swims heavily, i6 XLII There is a feverish famine in my veins : Below her bosom, where a crushed grape stains The white and blue, there my lips caught and clove An hour since, and what mark of me remains ? XLIII I dare not always touch her, lest the kiss Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss, Brief bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin ; Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is. XLIV Sin, is it sin whereby men's souls are thrust Into the pit ? yet had I a good trust To save my soul before it slipped therein, Trod under by the fire -shod feet of lust. 17 XLV For if mine eyes fail and my soul takes breath, I look between the iron sides of death Into sad hell where all sweet love hath end, All but the pain that never finisheth. XLV I There are the naked faces of great kings, The singing folk with all their lute-playings; There when one cometh he shall have to friend The grave that covets and the worm that clings. XLV 1 1 There sit the knights that were so great of hand. The ladies that were queens of fair green land, Grown grey and black now, brought unto the dust, Soiled, without raiment, clad about with sand. 1 8 XLVIII There is one end for all of them ; they sit Naked and sad, they drink the dregs of it, Trodden as grapes in the wine- press of lust, Trampled and trodden by the fiery feet. XLIX I see the marvellous mouth where- by there fell Cities and people whom the gods loved well, Yet for her sake on them the fire gat hold. And for their sakes on her the fire of hell. L And softer than the Egyptian lote-leaf is. The queen whose face was worth the world to kiss, Wearing at breast a suckling snake of gold ; And large pale lips of strong Semiramis. LI Curled like a tiger's that curl back to feed ; Red only where the last kiss made them bleed; Her hair most thick with many a carven gem, Deep in the mane, great-chested, like a steed. LII Yea, with red sin the faces of them shine ; But in all these there was no sin like mine ; No, not in all the strange great sins of them That made the wine -press froth and foam with wine. i.iii For I was of Christ's choosing, I God's knight. No blinkard heathen stumbling for scant light ; I can well see, for all the dusty days Gone past, the clean great time of goodly fight. LIV I smell the breathing battle sharp with blows, With shriek of shafts and snapping short of bows ; The fair pure sword smites out in subtle ways, Sounds and long lights are shed between the rows LV Of beautiful mailed men; the edged light slips. Most like a snake that takes short breath and dips Sharp from the beautifully bending head. With all its gracious body lithe as lips LVI That curl in touching you; right in this wise My sword doth, seeming fire in mine own eyes, Leaving all colours in them brown and red And flecked with death ; then the keen breaths like sighs, LVII The caught -up choked dry laugh- ters following them, When all the fighting face is grown a flame For pleasure, and the pulse that stuns the ears, And the heart's gladness of the goodly game. LVIII Let me think yet a little; I do know These things were sweet, but sweet such years ago, Their savour is all turned now into tears ; Yea, ten years since, where the blue ripples blow, LIX The blue curled eddies of the blowing Rhine, I felt the sharp wind shaking grass and vine Touch my blood too, and sting me with delight Through all this waste and weary body of mine LX That never feels clear air; right gladly then I rode alone, a great way off my men, And heard the chiming bridle smite and smite, And gave each rhyme thereof some rhyme again, LXI Till my song shifted to that iron one; Seeing there rode up between me and the sun Some certain of my foe's men, for his three White wolves across their painted coats did run. LXII The first red-bearded, with square cheeks — alack, I made my knave's blood turn his beard to black ; The slaying of him was a joy to see : Perchance too, when at night he came not back. 23 LXIII Some woman fell a-weeping, whom this thief Would beat when he had drunken ; yet small grief Hath any for the ridding of such knaves ; Yea, if one wept, I doubt her teen was brief. LXIV This bitter love is sorrow in all lands. Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands, Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves ; A sign across the head of the world he stands, LXV As one that hath a plague -mark on his brows ; Dust and spilt blood do track him to his house Down under earth ; sweet smells of lip and cheek, Like a sweet snake's breath made more poisonous 24 LXVI With chewing of some perfumed deadly grass, Are shed all round his passage if he pass, And their quenched savour leaves the vi^hole soul weak. Sick with keen guessing whence the perfume was. LXVII As one who hidden in deep sedge and reeds Smells the rare scent made where a panther feeds, And tracking ever slotwise the warm smell Is snapped upon by the sweet mouth and bleeds, LXVIII His head far down the hot sweet throat of her — So one tracks love, whose breath is deadlier, And lo, one springe and you are fast in hell, Fast as the gin's grip of a wayfarer. LXIX I think now, as the heavy hours decease One after one, and bitter thoughts increase One upon one, of all sweet fin- ished things; The breaking of the battle ; the long peace LXX Wherein we sat clothed softly, each man's hair Crowned with green leaves beneath white hoods of vair ; The sounds of sharp spears at great tourneyings. And noise of singing in the late sweet air. LXXI I sang of love, too, knowing nought thereof; " Sweeter," I said, " the little laugh of love Than tears out of the eyes of Magdalen, Or any fallen feather of the Dove. 26 LXXII **The broken little laugh that spoils a kiss, The ache of purple pulses, and the bliss Of blinded eyelids that expand again — Love draws them open with those lips of his, LXXIII "■ Lips that cling hard till the kissed face has grown Of one same fire and colour with their own ; Then ere one sleep, appeased with sacrifice. Where his lips wounded, there his lips atone." LXXIV I sang these things long since and knew them not ; " Lo, here is love, or there is love, God wot, This man and that finds favour in his eyes," I said, " but I, what guerdon have I got ? 27 LXXV " The dust of praise that is blown everywhere In all men's faces with the com- mon air ; The bay-leaf that wants chafing to be sweet Before they wind it in a singer's hair." Lxxvr So that one dawn I rode forth sorrowing; I had no hope but of some evil thing, And so rode slowly past the windy wheat, And past the vineyard and the water -spring, LXXVII Up to the Horsel. A great elder- tree Held back its heaps of flowers to let me see The ripe tall grass, and one that walked therein, Naked, with hair shed over to the knee. 28 I LXXVIII She walked between the blossom and the grass ; I knew the beauty of her, what she was, The beauty of her body and her sin, And in my flesh the sin of hers, alas ! LXXIX Alas ! for sorrow is all the end of this. sad kissed mouth, how sorrow- ful it is I O breast whereat some suckling sorrow clings. Red with the bitter blossom of a kiss ! LXXX Ah, with blind lips I felt for you, and found About my neck your hands and hair enwound, The hands that stifle and the hair that stings, 1 felt them fasten sharply without sound. 29 Yea, for my sin I had great store of bliss : Rise up, make answer for me, let thy kiss Seal my lips hard from speaking of my sin, Lest one go mad to hear how sweet it is. LXXXII Yet I waxed faint with fume of barren bowers, And murmuring of the heavy- headed hours ; And let the dove's beak fret and peck within My lips in vain, and Love shed fruitless flowers. LXXXIII So that God looked upon me when your hands Were hot about me ; yea, God brake my bands To save my soul alive, and I came forth Like a man blind and naked in strange lands 30 LXXXIV That hears men laugh and weep, and knows not whence Nor wherefore, but is broken in his sense ; Howbeit I met folk riding from the north Towards Rome, to purge them of their souls' offence, LXXXV And rode with them, and spake to none ; the day Stunned me like lights upon some wizard way. And ate like fire mine eyes and mine eyesight ; So rode I, hearing all these chant and pray, LXXXVI And marvelled; till before us rose and fell "White cursed hills, like outer skirts of hell Seen where men's eyes look through the day to night, Like a jagged shell's lips, harsh, untunable. LXXXVII Blown in between by devils' wrangling breath ; Nathless we won well past that hell and death, Down to the sweet land where all airs are good, Even unto Rome where God's grace tarrieth. LXXXVIII Then came each man and wor- shipped at his knees Who in the Lord God's likeness bears the keys To bind or loose, and called on Christ's shed blood, And so the sweet -souled father gave him ease. LXXXIX But when I came I fell down at his feet, Saying, " Father, though the Lord's blood be right sweet, The spot it takes not off the panther's skin, Nor shall an Ethiop's stain be bleached with it. 32 xc •' Lo, I have sinned and have spat out at God, Wherefore his hand is heavier and his rod More sharp because of mine exceeding sin, And all his raiment redder than bright blood xci '* Before mine eyes ; yea, for my sake I wot The heat of hell is waxen seven times hot Through my great sin." Then spake he some sweet word, Giving me cheer ; which thing availed me not ; XCII Yea, scarce I wist if such indeed were said ; For when I ceased — lo, as one newly dead Who hears a great cry out of hell, I heard The crying of his voice across my head. 33 XCIII " Until this dry shred staff, that hath no whit Of leaf nor bark, bear blossom and smell sweet, Seek thou not any mercy in God's sight, For so long shalt thou be cast out from it." xciv Yea, what if dried -up stems wax red and green, Shall that thing be which is not nor has been ? Yea, what if sapless bark wax green and white. Shall any good fruit grow upon xcv Nay, though sweet fruit were plucked of a dry tree, And though men drew sweet waters of the sea, There should not grow sweet leaves on this dead stem, This waste wan body and shaken soul of me. Yea, though God search it warily enough, There is not one sound thing in all thereof ; Though he search all my veins through, starching them He shall find nothing whole there- in but love. For I came home right heavy, with small cheer, And lo my love, mine own soul's heart, more dear Than mine own soul, more beautiful than God, Who hath my being between the hands of her — XCVIII Fair still, but fair for no man sav- ing me, As when she came out of the naked sea Making the foam as fire whereon she trod, And as the inner flower of fire was she. 35 XCIX Yea, she laid hold upon me, and her mouth Clove unto mine as soul to body doth, And, laughing, made her lips luxurious ; Her hair had smells of all the sunburnt south, c Strange spice and flower, strange savour of crushed fruit, And perfume the swart kings tread underfoot For pleasure when their minds wax amorous, Charred frankincense and grated sandal-root. CI And I forgot fear and all weary things. All ended prayers and perished thanksgivings. Feeling her face with all her eager hair Cleave to me, clinging as a fire that clings 36 CII To the body and to the raiment, burning them ; As after death I know that such- like flame Shall cleave to me for ever ; yea, what care. Albeit I burn then, having felt the cm Ah love, there is no better life than this ; To have known love, how bitter a thing it is, And afterward be cast out of God's sight; Yea, these that know not, shall they have such bliss CIV High up in barren heaven before his face As we twain in the heavy-hearted place. Remembering love and all the dead delight, And all that time was sweet with for a space ? 37 cv For till the thunder in the trumpet be, Soul may divide from body, but not we One from another; I hold thee with my hand, I let mine eyes have all their will of thee, cvi I seal myself upon thee with my might, Abiding alway out of all men's sight Until God loosen over sea and land The thunder of the trumpets of the night. EXPLICIT LAUS VENERIS. APPENDIX "The ' Laus Veneris,' it- self sufficiently independent of models, is prefaced by a paragraph in old French pur- porting to be extracted from a 'Livre des Grandes Mer- veilles d'Amour, escript en Latin et en Franfoys par Maistre Antoine Gaget, 1530,' but which we confidently father upon Mr, Swinburne himself." \V. M. ROSSETTI. NOTE TO LAUS VENERIS LORS dit en plourant ; H^las trop malheureux homme et mauldict pescheur, oncques re verrai-je clemence et raisdricorde de Dieu. Ores m'en irai-je d'icy et me cacherai dedans le mont Horsel, en requerant de faveur et d'amoureuse merci ma doulce dame Venus, car pour son amour serai-je bien k tout jamais damne en enfer. Voicy la fin de tous mes faicts d'armes et de toutes mes belles chansons. Helas, trop belle estoyt la face de ma dame et ses yeulx, et en mauvais jour je vis ces chouses-la. Lors s'en alia tout en gemissant et se retourna chez elle, et la vescut tristement en grand amour pres de sa dame. Puis apres advint que le pape vit un jour esclater sur son baston force belles fleurs rouges et blanches et maints boutons de feuilles, et aiusi vit-il reverdir toute I'escorce. Ce dent il eut grande crainte et moult s'en esmut, et grande piti^ lui prit de ce chev- alier qui s'en estoyt departi sans espoir comme un homme miserable et damne. Doncques envoya force messaigers devers luy pour le ramener, disant qu'il aurait de 41 APPENDIX Dieu grace et bonne absolution de son grand pesch^ d'amour. Mais oncques plus ne le virent ; car toujours demeura ce pauvre chevalier aupres de V^nus la haulte et forte d^esse es flancs de la montagne amoureuse. Livre des grandes merveilUs d'amour, escript en latin et en Franfoys par Maistre An- toine Gaget. 1530. TRANSLATION Then lamented he weeping : Alas, most unhappy and accursed sinner that I am, in that I shall never see the clemency and mercy of my God, Now will I go forth and hide myself within Mount Horsel, imploring my sweet lady Venus for favour and loving mercy, for willingly would I be forever condemned to hell for her love. Here endeth all my deeds of arms and my sweet singing, Alas that my lady's face and her eyes were too beautiful, and that in an unfortunate moment I saw them. Then went he forth sighing and returned to her, and dwelt sadly in the presence of his lady, filled with a surpassing love. And afterwards it came to pass that one day the pope saw many red and white flowers and leaf-buds spring forth from his staff, and all its bark bloomed anew. So that he feared greatly, and being much 42 APPENDIX moved thereby was filled with great pity for the chevalier who had gone forth hopeless like unto a man forever damned and miserable. And straightway sent he numberless messengers to him to bring him back, saying that he should receive grace and absolution from God, for this his so great sin of love. But nevermore was he seen ; for the poor chevalier dwelt forever near unto Venus, that most high and mighty Goddess, in the bosom of the amorous mountain. II BIBLIOGRAPHY I . Laus Veneris. /By/ Algernon Charles Swinburne. / London : /Edward Moxon & Co., Dover Street./i866. Collation: — Octavo, pp. 28; consisting of Half-title (with blank reverse) pp. 1-2 ; Title-page, as above (with im- print — "London:/ Bradbury, Evans, and Co., Printers, Whitefriars " — in the centre of the reverse), pp. 3-4 ; passage from Livre des grandes merveilles d 'amour, escript en latin et en fran