 | The Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne |  |
316
XVII
APOLOGIA
If wrath embitter the sweet mouth of song,
And make the sunlight fire before those eye
That would drink draughts of peace from the unsoiled skies,
The wrongdoing is not ours, but ours the wrong,
Who hear too loud on earth and see too long
The grief that dies not with the groan that dies,
Till the strong bitterness of pity cries
Within us, that our anger should be strong.
For chill is known by heat and heat by chill,
And the desire that hope makes love to still
By the fear flying beside it or above,
A falcon fledged to follow a fledgeling dove,
And by the fume and flame of hate of ill
The exuberant light and burning bloom of love.
| The Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne | |