Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, JOHN JONES: 5. OFF THE PIER, by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

JOHN JONES: 5. OFF THE PIER, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: One last glance at these sands and stones!
Last Line: You would hardly salute me by choice, john jones?
Subject(s): Time; Wharves; Youth; Piers


I.

ONE last glance at these sands and stones!
Time goes past men, and lives to his liking
Steals, and ruins, and sometimes atones.
Why should he be king, though, and why not I king?
There now, that wind, like a swarm of sick drones!

II.

Is it heaven or mere earth (come!) that moves so and moans?
Oh, I knew, when you loved me, my soul was in flowerage --
Now the frost comes; from prime, though, I watched through to nones,
Read love's litanies over -- his age was not our age!
No more flutes in this world for me now, dear! trombones.

III.

All that youth once denied and made mouths at, age owns.
Facts put fangs out and bite us; life stings and grows viperous;
And times fugues are a hubbub of meaningless tones.
Once we followed the piper; now why not the piper us?
Love, grown grey, plays mere solos; we want antiphones.

IV.

And we sharpen our wits up with passions for hones,
Melt down loadstars for magnets, use women for whetstones,
Learn to bear with dead calms by remembering cyclones,
Snap strings short with sharp thumbnails, till silence begets tones,
Burn our souls out, shift spirits, turn skins and change zones;

V.

Then the heart, when all's done with, wakes, whimpers, intones
Some lost fragment of tune it thought sweet ere it grew sick;
(Is it life that disclaims this, or death that disowns?)
Mere dead metal, scrawled bars -- ah, one touch, you make music!
Love's worth saving, youth doubts, but experience depones.

VI.

Think, what use, when youth's saddle galls bay's back or roan's,
To seek chords on love's keys to strike, other than his chords?
There's an error joy winks at and grief half condones,
Or life's counterpoint grates the C major of discords --
'Tis man's choice 'twixt sluts rose-crowned and queens age dethrones.

VII.

I for instance might groan as a bag-pipe groans,
Give the flesh of my heart for sharp sorrows to flagellate,
Grief might grind my cheeks down, age make sticks of my bones,
(Though a queen drowned in tears must be worth more than Madge elate)
Rose might turn burdock, and pine-apples cones;

VIII.

My skin might change to a pitiful crone's,
My lips to a lizard's, my hair to weed,
My features, in fact, to a series of loans;
Thus much is conceded; now, you, concede
You would hardly salute me by choice, John Jones?





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