138 Quotes by Algernon Charles Swinburne

For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.

Hope knows not if fear speaks truth, nor fear whether hope be blind as she.

If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather.

Our way is where God knows And Love knows where: We are in Love's hand to-day.

We, drinking love at the furthest springs, Covered with love as a covering tree, We had grown as gods, as the gods above, Filled from the heart to the lips with love, Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings, O love, my love, had you loved but me!

The loves and hours of the life of a man, They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.

Love, as is told by the seers of old, Comes as a butterfly tipped with gold, Flutters and flies in sunlit skies, Weaving round hearts that were one time cold.

O Love, O great god Love, what have I done, That thou shouldst hunger so after my death? My heart is harmless as my life's first day: Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed.

Love laid his sleepless head On a thorny rose bed: And his eyes with tears were red, And pale his lips as the dead.