Skip to content
Linespedia

Sunset and Moonrise

By Algernon Charles Swinburne

Topics: classic

All the west, whereon the sunset sealed the dead year's glorious grave     Fast with seals of light and fire and cloud that light and fire illume,     Glows at heart and kindles earth and heaven with joyous blush and bloom,     Warm and wide as life, and glad of death that only slays to save.     As a tide-reconquered sea-rock lies aflush with the influent wave     Lies the light aflush with darkness, lapped about by lustrous gloom,     Even as life with death, and fame with time, and memory with the tomb     Where a dead man hath for vassals Fame the serf and Time the slave.     Far from earth as heaven, the steadfast light withdrawn, superb, suspense,     Burns in dumb divine expansion of illimitable flower:     Moonrise whets the shadow's edges keen as noontide: hence and thence     Glows the presence from us passing, shines and passes not the power.     Souls arise whose word remembered is as spirit within the sense:     All the hours are theirs of all the seasons: death has but his hour.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"All the west, whereon the sunset sealed the dead year's glorious grave..."

"Sunset and Moonrise" is a quintessential example of Algernon Charles Swinburne's signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Attribution & Rights

Author:Algernon Charles Swinburne

"All the west, whereon the sunset sealed the dead y..." by Algernon Charles Swinburne

For usage rights, copyright concerns, or to report an issue with this content, please visit our Copyright & Report page.

Related lines

"I.     Is the sound a trumpet blown, or a bell for burial tolled,     Whence the whole air vibrates now to the clash of words like swords     Let"

"Kind, wise, and true as truth's own heart,     A soul that here     Chose and held fast the better part     And cast out fear,     Has left us"

"I     Out of hell a word comes hissing, dark as doom,     Fierce as fire, and foul as plague-polluted gloom;     Out of hell wherein the sinless da"

"A faint sea without wind or sun;     A sky like flameless vapour dun;     A valley like an unsealed grave     That no man cares to weep upon,"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Algernon Charles Swinburne

About Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) was an English poet known for metrical innovation and bold themes. His "Atalanta in Calydon" and "Poems and Ballads" challenged Victorian conventions with their musical intensity and controversial subject matter.

Full Bibliography
Continue Reading

"I.     Is the sound a trumpet blown, or a bell for..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.