Ode for the Seventieth Birthday of Swinburne

He needs no crown of ours, whose golden heartPoured out its wealth so freely in pure praiseOf others: him the imperishable baysCrown, and on Sunium's height he sits apart:He hears immortal greetings this great morn:Fain would we bring, we also, all we may,Some wayside flower of transitory bloom,Frail tribute, only bornTo greet the gladness of this April dayThen waste on death's dark wind its faint perfume.

Here on this April day the whole sweet SpringSpeaks thro' his music only, or seems to speak.And we that hear, with hearts uplift and weak,What can we more than claim him for our king?Here on this April day (and many a timeShall April come and find him singing still)He is one with the world's great heart beyond the years,One with the pulsing rhymeOf tides that work some heavenly rhythmic willAnd hold the secret of all human tears.

For he, the last of that immortal raceWhose music, like a robe of living lightRe-clothed each new-born age and made it brightAs with the glory of Love's transfiguring face,Reddened earth's roses, kindled the deep blueOf England's radiant, ever-singing sea,Recalled the white Thalassian from the foam.Woke the dim stars anewAnd triumphed in the triumph of Liberty,We claim him; but he hath not here his home.

Not here; round him to-day the clouds divide:We know what faces thro' that rose-flushed airNow bend above him: Shelley's face is there,And Hugo's, lit with more than kingly pride.Replenished there with splendour, the blind eyesOf Milton bend from heaven to meet his own,Sappho is there, crowned with those queenlier flowersWhose graft outgrew our skies,His gift: Shakespeare leans earthward from his throneWith hands outstretched. He needs no crown of ours.