KING DAVID

by: Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

      ORD GOD, alas, what shall I sain?
      Lo, thou art as an hundred men
      Both to break and build again:
      The wild ways thou makes plain,
      Thine hands hold the hail and rain,
      And thy fingers both grape and grain;
      Of their largess we be all well fain,
      And of their great pity:
      The sun thou madest of good gold,
      Of clean silver the moon cold,
      All the great stars thou hast told
      As thy cattle in thy fold
      Every one by his name of old;
      Wind and water thou hast in hold,
      Both the land and the long sea;
      Both the green sea and the land
      Lord God, thou hast in hand,
      Both white water and grey sand;
      Upon thy right or thy left hand
      There is no man that may stand;
      Lord, thou rue on me.
      O wise Lord, if thou be keen
      To note things amiss that been,
      I am not worth a shell of bean
      More than an old mare meagre and lean
      For all my wrong-doing with my queen,
      It grew not of our heartès clean,
      But it began of her body.
      For it fell in the hot May
      I stood within a paven way
      Built of fair bright stone, perfay,
      That is as fire of night and day
      And lighteth all my house.
      Therein be neither stones nor sticks,
      Neither red nor white bricks,
      But for cubits five or six
      There is most goodly sardonyx
      And amber laid in rows.
      It goes round about my roofs,
      (If ye list ye shall have proofs)
      There is good space for horse and hoofs,
      Plain and nothing perilous.
      For the fair green weather's heat,
      And for the smell of leaves sweet,
      It is no marvel, will ye weet,
      A man to waxen amorous.
      This I say now by my case
      That spied forth of that royal place;
      There I saw in no great space
      Mine own sweet, both body and face,
      Under the fresh boughs.
      In a water that was there
      She wesshe her goodly body bare
      And dried it with her own hair;
      Both her arms and her knees fair,
      Both bosom and brows;
      Both shoulders and eke thighs
      Tho she wesshe upon this wise;
      Ever she sighed with little sighs,
      And ever she gave God thank.
      Yea, God wot I can well see yet
      Both her breast and her sides all wet
      And her long hair withouten let
      Spread sideways like a drawing net;
      Full dear bought and full far fet
      Was that sweet thing there y-set;
      It were a hard thing to forget
      How both lips and eyen met,
      Breast and breath sank.
      So goodly a sight as there she was,
      Lying looking on her glass
      By wan water in green grass,
      Yet saw never man.
      So soft and great she was and bright
      With all her body waxen white,
      I woxe nigh blind to see the light
      Shed out of it to left and right;
      This bitter sin from that sweet sight
      Between us twain begin.

"King David" is reprinted from Poetica Erotica. Ed. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown Publishers, 1921.

MORE POEMS BY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

RELATED LINKS

BROWSE THE POETRY ARCHIVE:

[ A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z ]

Home · Poetry Store · Links · Email · © 2002 Poetry-Archive.com