A Poet Leaving Athens
Speak not too ill of me, Athenian friends!
Nor ye, Athenian sages, speak too ill!
From others of all tribes am I secure.
I leave your confines: none whom you caress,
Finding me hungry and athirst, shall dip
Into Cephisos the grey bowl to quench
My thirst, or break the horny bread, and scoop
Stiffly around the scanty vase, wherewith
To gather the hard honey at the sides,
And give it me for having heard me sing.
Sages and friends! a better cause remains
For wishing no black sail upon my mast.
'Tis, friends and sages! lest, when other men
Say words a little gentler, ye repent,
Yet be forbidden by stern pride to share
The golden cup of kindness, pushing back
Your seats, and gasping for a draught of scorn.
Alas! shall this too, never lackt before,
Be, when you most would crave it, out of reach?
Thus on the plank, now Neptune is invoked,
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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The Death of Artemidora
“ARTEMIDORA! Gods invisible,
While thou art lying faint along the couch,
Have tied the sandal to thy veined feet,
And stand beside thee, ready to convey
Thy weary steps where other rivers flow.
Refreshing shades will waft thy weariness
Away, and voices like thine own come nigh,
Soliciting, nor vainly, thy embrace.”
Artemidora sigh’d, and would have press’d
The hand now pressing hers, but was too weak.
Fate’s shears were over her dark hair unseen
While thus Elpenor spake: he look’d into
Eyes that had given light and life erewhile
To those above them, those now dim with tears
And watchfulness. Again he spake of joy,
Eternal. At that word, that sad word, joy,
Faithful and fond her bosom heav’d once more,
Her head fell back: one sob, one loud deep sob
Swell’d through the darken’d chamber; ’t was not hers:
With her that old boat incorruptible,
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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An Invocation
WE are what suns and winds and waters make us;
The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills
Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles.
But where the land is dim from tyranny,
There tiny pleasures occupy the place
Of glories and of duties; as the feet
Of fabled faeries when the sun goes down
Trip o’er the grass where wrestlers strove by day.
Then Justice, call’d the Eternal One above,
Is more inconstant than the buoyant form
That burst into existence from the froth
Of ever-varying ocean: what is best
Then becomes worst; what loveliest, most deform’d.
The heart is hardest in the softest climes,
The passions flourish, the affections die.
O thou vast tablet of these awful truths,
That fillest all the space between the seas,
Spreading from Venice’s deserted courts
To the Tarentine and Hydruntine mole,
What lifts thee up? what shakes thee? ’t is the breath
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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Time to Be Wise
YES; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talk’d of by young men
As rather clever;
In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size;
Is it not time then to be wise?
Or now or never.
Fairest that ever sprang from Eve!
While Time allows the short reprieve,
Just look at me! would you believe
’T was once a lover?
I cannot clear the five-bar gate;
But, trying first its timber’s state,
Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait
To trundle over.
Through gallopade I cannot swing
The entangling blooms of Beauty’s spring:
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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Farewell to Italy
I LEAVE thee, beauteous Italy! no more
From the high terraces, at even-tide,
To look supine into thy depths of sky,
Thy golden moon between the cliff and me,
Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses
Bordering the channel of the milky way.
Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams
Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico
Murmur to me but in the poet’s song.
I did believe (what have I not believ’d?),
Weary with age, but unoppress’d by pain,
To close in thy soft clime my quiet day
And rest my bones in the mimosa’s shade.
Hope! Hope! few ever cherish’d thee so little;
Few are the heads thou hast so rarely rais’d;
But thou didst promise this, and all was well.
For we are fond of thinking where to lie
When every pulse hath ceas’d, when the lone heart
Can lift no aspiration—reasoning
As if the sight were unimpair’d by death,
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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On the Death of M. D’Ossoli and His Wife Margaret Fuller
OVER his millions Death has lawful power,
But over thee, brave D’Ossoli! none, none.
After a longer struggle, in a fight
Worthy of Italy, to youth restor’d,
Thou, far from home, art sunk beneath the surge
Of the Atlantic; on its shore; in reach
Of help; in trust of refuge; sunk with all
Precious on earth to thee … a child, a wife!
Proud as thou wert of her, America
Is prouder, showing to her sons how high
Swells woman’s courage in a virtuous breast.
She would not leave behind her those she lov’d:
Such solitary safety might become
Others; not her; not her who stood beside
The pallet of the wounded, when the worst
Of France and Perfidy assail’d the walls
Of unsuspicious Rome. Rest, glorious soul,
Renown’d for strength of genius, Margaret!
Rest with the twain too dear! My words are few,
And shortly none will hear my failing voice,
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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On The Descent Into Hell Of Ezzelino Di Napoli
Rejoice, ye nations! one is dead
By whom ten thousand hearts have bled.
Widows and orphans, raise your voice . .
One voice, ye prostrate peoples, raise
To God; to God alone be praise!
All dwellers upon earth, rejoice:
The imprisond soul, the tortured limb,
Are now at last set free by Him.
Each king their fellow king supplied
With thongs to scourge ye: but your wrongs
Reacht highest heaven; Angelic tongues
Shouted when Earth's Flagellant died.
The Demons heard and yell'd below,
Glad that his endless day of woe
(Long after theirs) had dimly dawn'd.
The proudest of them all sate dumb,
Angry that any Prince should come,
Who grudg'd to give the soul he pawn'd.
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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On The Dead
Yes, in this chancel once we sat alone,
O Dorothea! thou wert bright with youth,
Freshness like Morning's dwelt upon thy cheek,
While here and there above the level pews,
Above the housings of the village dames,
The musky fan its groves and zephyrs waved.
I know not why (since we had each our book
And lookt upon it stedfastly) first one
Outran the learned labourer from the desk,
Then tript the other and limpt far behind,
And smiles gave blushes birth, and blushes smiles.
Ah me! where are they flown, my lovely friend!
Two seasons like that season thou hast lain
Cold as the dark-blue stone beneath my feet,
While my heart beats as then, but not with joy.
O my lost friends! why were ye once so dear?
And why were ye not fewer, O ye few?
Must winter, spring, and summer, thus return,
Commemorating some one torn away,
Till half the months at last shall take, with me,
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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Alciphron and Leucippe
An ancient chestnut’s blossoms threw
Their heavy odour over two:
Leucippe, it is said, was one;
The other, then, was Alciphron.
‘Come, come! why should we stand beneath?’
This hollow tree’s unwholesome breath?’
Said Alciphron, ‘here’s not a blade
Of grass or moss, and scanty shade.
Come; it is just the hour to rove
In the lone dingle shepherds love;
There, straight and tall, the hazel twig
Divides the crookàed rock-held fig,
O’er the blue pebbles where the rill
In winter runs and may run still.
Come then, while fresh and calm the air,
And while the shepherds are not there.’
Leucippe. But I would rather go when they
Sit round about and sing and play.
Then why so hurry me? for you
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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Aeschylos And Sophocles
Sophocles: Thou goest then, and leavest none behind Worthy to rival thee!
Aeschylos: Nay, say not so.
Whose is the hand that now is pressing mine?
A hand I may not ever press again!
What glorious forms hath it brought boldly forth
From Pluto's realm! The blind old Oedipos
Was led on one side by Antigone,
Sophocles propt the other.
Sophocles: Sophocles
Sooth'd not Prometheus chaind upon his rock,
Keeping the vultures and the Gods away;
Sophocles is not greater than the chief
Who conquered Ilion, nor could he revenge
His murder, or stamp everlasting brand
Upon the brow of that adulterous wife.
Aeschylos: Live, and do more.
Thine is the Lemnian ile,
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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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