Cor Cordium - Algernon Charles Swinburne

[wanton-wonton.livejournal.com]

Cor Cordium

 Algernon Charles Swinburne

O heart of hearts, the chalice of love's fire,

       Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom;

       O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom

The lyrist liberty made life a lyre;

O heavenly heart, at whose most dear desire

       Dead love, living and singing, cleft his tomb,

       And with him risen and regent in death's room

All day thy choral pulses rang full choir;

O heart whose beating blood was running song,

       O sole thing sweeter than thine own songs were,

               Help us for thy free love's sake to be free,

True for thy truth's sake, for thy strength's sake strong,

       Till very liberty make clean and fair

               The nursing earth as the sepulchral sea.