[Gutenberg 2137] • Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards: A Tragedy

Excerpt from The Tragedies of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Vol. 5 of 5: Locrine; The Sisters; Marino Faliero; Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards

To Alice Swinburne

I

The love that comes and goes like wind or fire

Hath words and wings wherewith to speak and flee,

But love more deep than passion's deep desire,

Clear and inviolable as the unsounded sea,

What wings of words may serve to set it free,

To lift and lead it homeward? Time and death

Are less than love: or man's live spirit saith

False, when he deems his life is more than breath.

II

No words may utter love; no sovereign song

Speak all it would for love's sake. Yet would I

Fain cast in moulded rhymes that do me wrong

Some little part of all my love: but why

Should weak and wingless words be fain to fly?

For us the years that live not are not dead:

Past days and present in our hearts are wed:

My song can say no more than love hath said.

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