Algernon Charles Swinburne

Though our works
Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this
At least is ours, to make them righteous.

Though our works
Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this
At least is ours, to make them righteous.

Fear that makes faith may break faith; and a fool Is but in folly stable.

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears,
Grief with a glass that ran…

Dream that the lips once breathless
Might quicken if they would;
Say that the soul is deathless;
Dream that the gods are good;
Say March may wed September,
And time divorce regret;
But not that you remember,
And not that I forget.

It is not much that a man can save
On the sands of life, in the straits of time,
Who swims in sight of the great third wave
That never a swimmer shall cross or climb.