"For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins."
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)
Swinburne was the Victorian equivalent of the modern rock star, a talented but highly controversial figure, interested in flagellation, sadomasochism, bisexuality, and lesbianism, not only for their erotics but also as gestures of social and cultural rebellion.
His outstanding quality was the musicality of his verse, demonstrated here in this segment from "Atalanta in Calydon" (1865)
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