They drive adrift, and whither They wot not who make thither; But no such winds blow hither,

And no such things grow here.

No growth of moor or coppice, No heather-flower or vine, But bloomless buds of poppies,2 Green grapes of Proserpine, Pale beds of blowing rushes Where no leaf blooms or blushes Save this whereout she crushes

For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,

In hell and heaven unmated,
By clouds and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.

Though one were strong as seven, He too with death shall dwell, Nor wake with wings in heaven,

Nor weep for pains in hell; Though one were fair as roses, His beauty clouds and closes; And well though love reposes,

In the end it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch or portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal

With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.

She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,

The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.

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The old loves with wearier wings; And all dead years draw thither; And all disastrous things; Dead dreams of things forsaken, Blind buds that snows have shaken, Wild leaves that winds have taken, Red strays of ruined springs.

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1 Proserpine was the child of Demeter, the motherearth. While gathering flowers in the Sicilian fields, she was caught up and carried off by Pluto, king of the Infernal regions, who made her queen of the lower realm. of darkness and death. She was afterwards permitted to leave the Shades for a part of each year and to visit Olympus. She typifies the corn, or grain, which passes from the dark prison in the earth to light, and leaves the light to return again to darkness. In this poem, Swinburne pictures the world as her garden, a place presided over by the Queen of the kingdom of darkness, a spot from which life is continually being carried off to the dark region of oblivion.

2 The poppy, the flower of oblivion, as associated with Proserpine. She is often represented with a garland of poppies on her head.

And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,

Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal

In an eternal night.

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PASTICHE1

(From Poems and Ballads, 1878)
Now the days are all gone over
Of our singing, love by lover,
Days of summer-coloured seas

Blown adrift through beam and breeze.

Now the nights are all past over
Of our dreaming, dreams that hover
In a mist of fair false things,
Nights afloat on wide wan wings.

Now the loves with faith for mother,
Now the fears with hope for brother,
Scarce are with us as strange words,
Notes from songs of last year's birds.
Now all good that comes or goes is
As the smell of last year's roses,
And the radiance in our eyes
Shot from summer's ere he dies.

Now the morning faintlier risen
Seems no god come forth of prison,
But a bird of plume plucked wing,
Pale with thought of evening.

Now hath hope, outraced in running
Given the torch up of his cunning
And the palm he thought to wear
Even to his own strong child-despair.

A FORSAKEN GARDEN1

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In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,

At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee

Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.

1 Pastiche (or pasticcio) is the French word for a medley, or a work in imitation of the style of several masters.

1 The scene of this poem is said to be East Dene, Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight.