Algernon Charles Swinburne: the English counterpart to Edgar Allan Poe

• August
• There were four apples on the bough,
• Half gold half red, that one might know
• The blood was ripe inside the core;
• The color of the leaves was more
• Like stems of yellow corn that grow
• Through all the gold June meadow’s floor.

• The warm smell of the fruit was good
• To feed on, and the split green wood,
• With all its bearded lips and stains
• Of mosses in the cloven veins,
• Most pleasant, if one lay or stood
• In sunshine or in happy rains.

• There were four apples on the tree,
• Red stained through gold, that all might see
• The sun went warm from core to rind;
• The green leaves made the summer blind
• In that soft place they kept for me
• With golden apples shut behind.

• The leaves caught gold across the sun,
• And where the bluest air begun,
• Thirsted for song to help the heat;
• As I to feel my lady’s feet
• Draw close before the day were done;
• Both lips grew dry with dreams of it.

• In the mute August afternoon
• They trembled to some undertune
• Of music in the silver air;
• Great pleasure was it to be there
• Till green turned duskier and the moon
• Colored the corn-sheaves like gold hair.

• That August time it was delight
• To watch the red moons wane to white
• ’Twixt grey seamed stems of apple-trees;
• A sense of heavy harmonies
• Grew on the growth of patient night,
• More sweet than shapen music is.

• But some three hours before the moon
• The air, still eager from the noon,
• Flagged after heat, not wholly dead;
• Against the stem I leant my head;
• The color soothed me like a tune,
• Green leaves all round the gold and red.

• I lay there till the warm smell grew
• More sharp, when flecks of yellow dew
• Between the round ripe leaves had blurred
• The rind with stain and wet; I heard
• A wind that blew and breathed and blew,
• Too weak to alter its one word.

• The wet leaves next the gentle fruit
• Felt smoother, and the brown tree-root
• Felt the mold warmer: I too felt
• (As water feels the slow gold melt
• Right through it when the day burns mute)
• The peace of time wherein love dwelt.

• There were four apples on the tree,
• Gold stained on red that all might see
• The sweet blood filled them to the core:
• The color of her hair is more
• Like stems of fair faint gold, that be
• Mown from the harvest’s middle floor.

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was an English poet writing in the late-Victorian period and known as one of the “decadent” poets of that time. Many of his poems are marked by taboo and risqué topics and themes, such as lesbianism and sado-masochism. He has been considered the English counterpart to Edgar Allan Poe because of his subject matter, his brooding tone, and his experimental use of meter. His poetry was also marked by a highly creative and expert use of rhyme.