A Dark Month / From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V

Algernon Charles Swinburne
Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Vol. V)
THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
VOL. V
STUDIES IN SONG : A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS : SONNETS ON ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS : THE HEPTALOGIA : ETC.
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
Algernon Charles Swinburne
1917 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
La maison sans enfants! —Victor Hugo.
A month without sight of the sun Rising or reigning or setting Through days without use of the day, Who calls it the month of May? The sense of the name is undone And the sound of it fit for forgetting.
We shall not feel if the sun rise, We shall not care when it sets: If a nightingale make night's air As noontide, why should we care? Till a light of delight that is done rise, Extinguishing grey regrets;
Till a child's face lighten again On the twilight of older faces; Till a child's voice fall as the dew On furrows with heat parched through And all but hopeless of grain, Refreshing the desolate places—