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    The Tale of Balen
    The Tale of Balen
    The Tale of Balen
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    The Tale of Balen

    By Algernon Charles Swinburne

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    The Tale of Balen

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      Book preview

      The Tale of Balen - Algernon Charles Swinburne

      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Tale of Balen, by Algernon Charles

      Swinburne

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: The Tale of Balen

      Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne

      Release Date: December 24, 2008 [eBook #2136]

      Language: English

      Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

      ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TALE OF BALEN***

      Transcribed from the 1896 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

      printed by

      spottiswoode and co., new-street square

      london

      THE TALE OF BALEN

      by

      ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

      LONDON

      CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

      1896

      Copyright in the United States, 1896, by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

      DEDICATION

      TO MY MOTHER

      Love that holds life and death in fee,

      Deep as the clear unsounded sea

      And sweet as life or death can be,

      Lays here my hope, my heart, and me

      Before you, silent, in a song.

      Since the old wild tale, made new, found grace,

      When half sung through, before your face,

      It needs must live a springtide space,

      While April suns grow strong.

      March 24, 1896.

      THE TALE OF BALEN

      I

      In hawthorn-time the heart grows light,

      The world is sweet in sound and sight,

      Glad thoughts and birds take flower and flight,

      The heather kindles toward the light,

         The whin is frankincense and flame.

      And be it for strife or be it for love

      The falcon quickens as the dove

      When earth is touched from heaven above

         With joy that knows no name.

      And glad in spirit and sad in soul

      With dream and doubt of days that roll

      As waves that race and find no goal

      Rode on by bush and brake and bole

         A northern child of earth and sea.

      The pride of life before him lay

      Radiant: the heavens of night and day

      Shone less than shone before his way

         His ways and days to be.

      And all his life of blood and breath

      Sang out within him: time and death

      Were even as words a dreamer saith

      When sleep within him slackeneth,

         And light and life and spring were one.

      The steed between his knees that sprang,

      The moors and woods that shone and sang,

      The hours where through the spring’s breath rang,

         Seemed ageless as the sun.

      But alway through the bounteous bloom

      That earth gives thanks if heaven illume

      His soul forefelt a shadow of doom,

      His heart foreknew a gloomier gloom

         Than closes all men’s equal ways,

      Albeit the spirit of life’s light spring

      With pride of heart upheld him, king

      And lord of hours like snakes that sting

         And nights that darken days.

      And as the strong spring round him grew

      Stronger, and all blithe winds that blew

      Blither, and flowers that flowered anew

      More glad of sun and air and dew,

         The shadow lightened on his soul

      And brightened into death and died

      Like winter, as the bloom waxed wide

      From woodside on to riverside

         And southward goal to goal.

      Along the wandering ways of Tyne,

      By beech and birch and thorn that shine

      And laugh when life’s requickening wine

      Makes night and noon and dawn divine

         And stirs in all the veins of spring,

      And past the brightening banks of Tees,

      He rode as one that breathes and sees

      A sun more blithe, a merrier breeze,

         A life that hails him king.

      And down the softening south that knows

      No more how glad the heather glows,

      Nor how, when winter’s clarion blows

      Across the bright Northumbrian snows,

         Sea-mists from east and westward meet,

      Past Avon senseless yet of song

      And Thames that bore but swans in throng

      He rode elate in heart and strong

         In trust of days as sweet.

      So came he through to Camelot,

      Glad, though for shame his heart waxed hot,

      For hope within it withered not

      To see the shaft it dreamed of shot

         Fair toward the glimmering goal of fame,

      And all King Arthur’s knightliest there

      Approved him knightly, swift to dare

      And keen to bid their records bear

         Sir Balen’s northern name.

      Sir Balen of Northumberland

      Gat grace before the king to stand

      High as his heart was, and his hand

      Wrought honour toward the strange north strand

         That sent him south so goodly a knight.

      And envy, sick with sense of sin,

      Began as poisonous herbs begin

      To work in base men’s blood, akin

         To men’s of nobler might.

      And even so fell it that his doom,

      For all his bright life’s kindling bloom

      And light that took no thought for gloom,

      Fell as a breath from the opening tomb

         Full on him ere he wist or thought.

      For once a churl of royal seed,

      King Arthur’s kinsman, faint in deed

      And loud in word that knew not heed,

         Spake shame where shame was nought.

      "What doth one here in Camelot

      Whose birth was northward?  Wot we not

      As all his brethren borderers wot

      How blind of heart, how keen and hot,

         The wild north lives and hates the south?

      Men of the narrowing march that knows

      Nought save the strength of storms and snows,

      What would these carles where knighthood blows

         A trump of kinglike mouth?"

      Swift from his place leapt Balen, smote

      The liar across his face, and wrote

      His wrath in blood upon the bloat

      Brute cheek that challenged shame for note

         How vile a king-born knave might be.

      Forth sprang their swords, and Balen slew

      The knave ere well one

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