Shinju

H.B. Drake
Shinju
London: The Bodley Head, 1929
347 pages, hardcover

The title page features the following two lines.

Death is strong and full of blood and fair

And perdurable and like a lord of land

The words are from a chorus in an epic by the decadant Victorian poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) called Atalanta in Calydon: A Tragedy (London: Edward Moxon, 1865).

And life bring one thing forth ere all pass by,
Even one thing which is ours yet cannot die --
Death.  Hast thou seen him ever anywhere,
Time's twin-born brother, imperishable as he
Is perishable and plaintive, clothed with care
  And mutable as sand,
But death is strong and full of blood and fair
  And perdurable and like a lord of land?

To be continued.