We have evidence of Swinburne's grief in two of the greatest poems of the Poems and Ballads, where it was least suspected, in "Anactoria" and "Dolores," poems whose morality he had to defend. He pours some light on the subject in his Notes on Poems and Reviews, published as a reply to his critics after the issue of his Poems and Ballads in 1865. Of "Anactoria" he said: "In this poem I have simply expressed, or tried to express, that violence of affection between one and another which hardens into rage and deepens into despair.... I have tried to cast my spirit into the mould of hers (Sappho), to express and represent not the poem but the poet.... As to the 'blasphemies' against God or gods of which here and elsewhere I stand accused—they are to be taken as the first outcome or outburst of foiled and fruitless passion recoiling on itself."
In other words he was singing his own grief through Sappho. The rage and despair were Swinburne's own and the "blasphemies" were his own reaction to frustrated love.
On "Dolores," the poet says: "I have striven here to express that transient state of spirit through which a man may be supposed to pass, foiled in love and weary of loving, but not yet in sight of rest; seeking rest in those violent delights which have violent ends in free and frank sensualities which at last profess to be no more than they are."
No doubt the poet gave himself up to light loves as a result of his disappointment. But the point here to be remembered is that the poem is by his own confession a result of a state of spirit through which a "man foiled in love" (the poet himself) may be said to pass and through which Swinburne did pass.
Let us examine some of his lyrics, chiefly those in his first volume where we can see the result of the love affair.
In "Laus Veneris" he breaks off from his story to say:
"Ah love, there is no better life than this,
To have known love how bitter a thing it is,
And afterwards be cast out of God's sight."
He spoke here from personal memories.