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Swinburne, Algernon Charles – from Hymn to Proserpine
Identifier
012550
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Algernon Charles Swinburne – from Hymn to Proserpine
And impelled of invisible tides, and fulfilled of unspeakable things,
White eyed and poisonous finned, shark toothed and serpentine-curled
Rolls, under the whitening wind of the future, the wave of the world.
The depths stand naked in sunder behind it, the storms flee away;
In the hollow before it the thunder is taken and snared as a prey;
In its sides is the north wind bound; and its salt is of all men’s tears;
With light of ruin, and sound of changes, and pulse of years;
With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour;
And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour;
And its vapour and storm of its steam as the sighing of spirits to be;
And its noise as the noise in a dream; and its depth as the roots of the sea;
And the height of its heads as the height of the utmost stars of the air;
And the ends of the earth at the might thereof tremble, and time is made bare,
Will ye bridle the deep sea with reins, will ye chasten the high sea with rods?
Will ye take her to chain her with chains, who is older than all the Gods?