# Songs before Sunrise (Swinburne)/On the Downs

ON THE DOWNS.
A Faint sea without wind or sun; A sky like flameless vapour dun; A valley like an unsealed grave That no man cares to weep upon, Bare, without boon to crave, Or flower to save.
And on the lip's edge of the down, Here where the bent-grass burns to brown In the dry sea-wind, and the heath Crawls to the cliff-side and looks down, I watch, and hear beneath The low tide breathe.
Along the long lines of the cliff, Down the flat sea-line without skiff Or sail or back-blown fume for mark, Through wind-worn heads of heath and stiff Stems blossomless and stark With dry sprays dark,
I send mine eyes out as for news Of comfort that all these refuse, Tidings of light or living air From windward where the low clouds muse And the sea blind and bare Seems full of care.
So is it now as it was then, And as men have been such are men. There as I stood I seem to stand, Here sitting chambered, and again Feel spread on either hand Sky, sea, and land.
As a queen taken and stripped and bound Sat earth, discoloured and discrowned; As a king's palace empty and dead The sky was, without light or sound; And on the summer's head Were ashes shed.
Scarce wind enough was on the sea, Scarce hope enough there moved in me, To sow with live blown flowers of white The green plain's sad serenity, Or with stray thoughts of light Touch my soul's sight.
By footless ways and sterile went My thought unsatisfied, and bent With blank unspeculative eyes On the untracked sands of discontent Where, watched of helpless skies, Life hopeless lies.
East and west went my soul to find Light, and the world was bare and blind And the soil herbless where she trod And saw men laughing scourge mankind, Unsmitten by the rod Of any God.
Out of time's blind old eyes were shed Tears that were mortal, and left dead The heart and spirit of the years, And on mans fallen and helmless head Time's disanointing tears Fell cold as fears.
Hope flowering had but strength to bear The fruitless fruitage of despair; Grief trod the grapes of joy for wine, Whereof love drinking unaware Died as one undivine And made no sign.
And soul and body dwelt apart; And weary wisdom without heart Stared on the dead round heaven and sighed, "Is death too hollow as thou art, Or as man's living pride?" And saying so died.
And my soul heard the songs and groans That are about and under thrones, And felt through all time's murmur thrill Fate's old imperious semitones That made of good and ill One same tune still.
Then "Where is God? and where is aid? Or what good end of these?" she said; "Is there no God or end at all, Nor reason with unreason weighed, Nor force to disenthral Weak feet that fall?
"No light to lighten and no rod To chasten men? Is there no God?" So girt with anguish, iron-zoned, Went my soul weeping as she trod Between the men enthroned And men that groaned.
O fool, that for brute cries of wrong Heard not the grey glad mother's song Ring response from the hills and waves, But heard harsh noises all day long Of spirits that were slaves And dwelt in graves.
The wise word of the secret earth Who knows what life and death are worth, And how no help and no control Can speed or stay things come to birth, Nor all worlds' wheels that roll Crush one born soul.
With all her tongues of life and death, With all her bloom and blood and breath, From all years dead and all things done, In the ear of man the mother saith, "There is no God, O son, If thou be none."
So my soul sick with watching heard That day the wonder of that word, And as one springs out of a dream Sprang, and the stagnant wells were stirred Whence flows through gloom and gleam Thought's soundless stream.
Out of pale cliff and sunburnt health, Out of the low sea curled beneath In the land's bending arm embayed, Out of all lives that thought hears breathe Life within life inlaid, Was answer made.
A multitudinous monotone Of dust and flower and seed and stone, In the deep sea-rock's mid-sea sloth, In the live water's trembling zone, In all men love and loathe, One God at growth.
One forceful nature uncreate That feeds itself with death and fate, Evil and good, and change and time, That within all men lies at wait Till the hour shall bid them climb And live sublime.
For all things come by fate to flower At their unconquerable hour, And time brings truth, and truth makes free, And freedom fills time's veins with power, As, brooding on that sea, My thought filled me.
And the sun smote the clouds and slew, And from the sun the sea's breath blew, And white waves laughed and turned and fled The long green heaving sea-field through, And on them overhead The sky burnt red
Like a furled flag that wind sets free, On the swift summer-coloured sea Shook out the red lines of the light, The live sun's standard, blown to lee Across the live sea's white And green delight.
And with divine triumphant awe My spirit moved within me saw, With burning passion of stretched eyes, Clear as the light's own firstborn law, In windless wastes of skies Time's deep dawn rise.