Prelude - Tristan And Isolde

Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837 (London) – 1909 (London)



Fate, out of the deep sea's gloom,
When a man's heart's pride grows great,
And nought seems now to foredoom
  Fate,

Fate, laden with fears in wait,
Draws close through the clouds that loom,
Till the soul see, all too late,

More dark than a dead world's tomb,
More high than the sheer dawn's gate,
More deep than the wide sea's womb,
  Fate.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

21 sec read
325

Quick analysis:

Scheme abaB bab abaB
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 338
Words 65
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 3, 4

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as Poems and Ballads, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Swinburne wrote about many taboo topics, such as lesbianism, cannibalism, sado-masochism, and anti-theism. His poems have many common motifs, such as the ocean, time, and death. Several historical people are featured in his poems, such as Sappho ("Sapphics"), Anactoria ("Anactoria"), Jesus ("Hymn to Proserpine": Galilaee, La. "Galilean") and Catullus ("To Catullus"). more…

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