Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet who was born a April 5th 1837 en London. His figure was perhaps overshadowed by other more dazzling names from an era that had them galore, but he was also recognized worldwide. His work, with a tendency to themes such as suicide, homosexuality, sadomasochism and anti-religious feelingsIt was obviously very controversial at the time. Today from here I want to remember it highlighting some of his verses.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Swinburne, from an aristocratic family settled in the Isle of Wight, He learned French and Italian thanks to the teachings of his mother and his paternal grandfather. He also received a strict religious education that lasted into his youth. Attended the prestigious Eton College and also studied at the Oxford University. It was also a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and a great admirer of Victor Hugo, to whom he dedicated one of his essays.
The leper, Atalanta in Calydon, Poems and ballads, Songs before dawn, Shakespeare's time y Maria Estuardo. It is, for example, in the historical trilogy of works about Queen Mary of Scotland, where it is appreciated that her heroines are prey to sexual obsessions worthy of one of their main teachers, the Marquis de Sade. And his erotic novel Lesbian Brandon remained unpublished until 1952. Or that Pasiphae, which was not published during the poet's lifetime.
Also wrote critical studies about william Shakespeare and essays on many authors like Charles Dickens and the sisters bronte.
His addiction to alcohol led him to suffer from serious health problems that forced him to move to a house on the outskirts of London. There he wanted to try to lead a healthy and calm life. He passed away on April 10, 1909.
poems
Sadness
Sadness, winged being that you travel the world,
Here and there, through time, asking for rest,
If rest is perhaps the happiness that sadness demands.
A thought lies close to your heart
Deep sorrow of voluptuous heat,
A dry grass in the rising river,
A red tear that runs through the stream.
Hearts that cut the chains
The bond of yesterday will be the oblivion of tomorrow,
All things in this world will pass away
but never sadness.
Love and dream
I saw my love lean on my sad bed,
pale as the fruit and leaf of the darkest lily,
bare, stripped and gloomy, with a bare neck, ready to be bitten
too white for blush and too hot to be immaculate,
but of the perfect color, absent of white and red.
And her lips tenderly parted, and she said
-in a single word- pleasure.And her whole face was honey for my mouth,
and his whole body was food for my eyes;
His long, airy arms and his hands hotter than fire
her limbs throbbing, the smell of her southern hair,
her light and shiny feet, her elastic and generous thighs
and the bright lids gave desire to my soul.
Before sunset
Twilight love declines in the sky
Before the night descends on the earth
Before fear feels its iron from the cold,
The twilight of love fades into the sky.
When the insatiable heart whispers between laments
"Either too much or too little",
and the lips belatedly abstain dry,
Soft, down the neck of every lover,
the hands of love hold its secret rein;
and while we look for a concrete sign in him,
its twilight light is tearing across the sky.
The lute and the lyre
A deep desire, penetrating the heart and the root of the spirit,
He finds his reluctant voice in verses that he yearns for, like burning embers;
Taking his exultant voice when the music vainly pursues a
Deep desire.
Lacerating while the passion of the rose burns whose petals breathe,
Strong as the buds yearning for fruits grows,
The unspoken secret sounds exhausting its deep tone.
The rapture that the soft lute of love possessed descends;
The palpitation of the triumph of the lyre descends:
Still the soul feels burning, a flame unleashed although silent
In his deep desire.