[Skip Navigation]

Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Christopher Marlowe

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire,
     Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star!
     Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most far.
Most far off in the abysm of time, thy lyre
Hung highest above the dawn-enkindled quire
     Where all ye sang together, all that are,
     And all the starry songs behind thy car
Rang sequence, all our souls acclaim thee sire.
“If all the pens that ever poets held
     Had fed the feeling of their masters’ thoughts,”
     And as with rush of hurtling chariots
The flight of all their spirits were impelled
     Toward one great end, thy glory—nay, not then,
Not yet might’st thou be praised enough of men.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Swinburne’s Collected Poetical Works | William Heinemann, 1924
Add Keyword Tags

Separate each tag with a space. You may add as many tags as you'd like to each poem.

What are tags?
Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

More Info

This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any Internet device.