The Eve Of Revolution



The trumpets of the four winds of the world
  From the ends of the earth blow battle; the night heaves,
With breasts palpitating and wings refurled,
  With passion of couched limbs, as one who grieves
Sleeping, and in her sleep she sees uncurled
  Dreams serpent-shapen, such as sickness weaves,
Down the wild wind of vision caught and whirled,
  Dead leaves of sleep, thicker than autumn leaves,
        Shadows of storm-shaped things,
        Flights of dim tribes of kings,
  The reaping men that reap men for their sheaves,
        And, without grain to yield,
        Their scythe-swept harvest-field
  Thronged thick with men pursuing and fugitives,
     Dead foliage of the tree of sleep,
Leaves blood-coloured and golden, blown from deep to deep.

I hear the midnight on the mountains cry
  With many tongues of thunders, and I hear
Sound and resound the hollow shield of sky
  With trumpet-throated winds that charge and cheer,
And through the roar of the hours that fighting fly,
  Through flight and fight and all the fluctuant fear,
A sound sublimer than the heavens are high,
  A voice more instant than the winds are clear,
        Say to my spirit, "Take
        Thy trumpet too, and make
  A rallying music in the void night's ear,
        Till the storm lose its track,
        And all the night go back;
  Till, as through sleep false life knows true life near,
     Thou know the morning through the night,
And through the thunder silence, and through darkness light."

I set the trumpet to my lips and blow.
  The height of night is shaken, the skies break,
The winds and stars and waters come and go
  By fits of breath and light and sound, that wake
As out of sleep, and perish as the show
  Built up of sleep, when all her strengths forsake
The sense-compelling spirit; the depths glow,
  The heights flash, and the roots and summits shake
        Of earth in all her mountains,
        And the inner foamless fountains
  And wellsprings of her fast-bound forces quake;
        Yea, the whole air of life
        Is set on fire of strife,
  Till change unmake things made and love remake;
     Reason and love, whose names are one,
Seeing reason is the sunlight shed from love the sun.

The night is broken eastward; is it day,
  Or but the watchfires trembling here and there,
Like hopes on memory's devastated way,
  In moonless wastes of planet-stricken air?
O many-childed mother great and grey,
  O multitudinous bosom, and breasts that bare
Our fathers' generations, whereat lay
  The weanling peoples and the tribes that were,
        Whose new-born mouths long dead
        Those ninefold nipples fed,
  Dim face with deathless eyes and withered hair,
        Fostress of obscure lands,
        Whose multiplying hands
  Wove the world's web with divers races fair
     And cast it waif-wise on the stream,
The waters of the centuries, where thou sat'st to dream;

O many-minded mother and visionary,
  Asia, that sawest their westering waters sweep
With all the ships and spoils of time to carry
  And all the fears and hopes of life to keep,
Thy vesture wrought of ages legendary
  Hides usward thine impenetrable sleep,
And thy veiled head, night's oldest tributary,
  We know not if it speak or smile or weep.
        But where for us began
        The first live light of man
  And first-born fire of deeds to burn and leap,
        The first war fair as peace
        To shine and lighten Greece,
  And the first freedom moved upon the deep,
     God's breath upon the face of time
Moving, a present spirit, seen of men sublime;

There where our east looks always to thy west,
  Our mornings to thine evenings, Greece to thee,
These lights that catch the mountains crest by crest,
  Are they of stars or beacons that we see?
Taygetus takes here the winds abreast,
  And there the sun resumes Thermopylae;
The light is Athens where those remnants rest,
  And Salamis the sea-wall of that sea.
        The grass men tread upon
        Is very Marathon,
  The leaves are of that time-unstricken tree
        That storm nor sun can fret
        Nor wind, since she that set
  Made it her sign to men whose shield was she;
     Here, as dead time his deathless things,
Eurotas and Cephisus keep their sleepless springs.

O hills of Crete, are these things dead?  O waves,
  O many-mouthed streams, are these springs dry?
Earth, dost thou feed and hide now none but s
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 20, 2023

3:38 min read
151

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABABABCCBDDXEE FGFHFHFHIIGJJHKK LILILILIMMINNIOO PQPQPQPXRRQSSQTT UEUEUEUEVVEWWEXX YUYUYLYUZZU1 1 UCC XFX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 4,294
Words 722
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 3

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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