Part 7 — WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

I LOVED him not; and yet now he is gone, I feel I am alone. I check’d him while he spoke; yet, could he speak, Alas! I would not check. For reasons not to love him once I sought, And wearied all my thought To vex myself and him; I now would give My love, could he but live Who lately lived for me, and when he found ’Twas vain, in holy ground He hid his face amid the shades of death. I waste for him my breath Who wasted his for me; but mine returns, And this lorn bosom burns With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep, And waking me to weep Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years Wept he as bitter tears. ‘Merciful God!’ such was his latest prayer, ‘These may she never share!’ Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold Than daisies in the mould, Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate, His name and life’s brief date. Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe’er you be, And, O, pray too for me!

AH, what avails the sceptred race! Ah, what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and sighs I consecrate to thee.

FROM you, Ianthe, little troubles pass Like little ripples down a sunny river; Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass, Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever.

TWENTY years hence my eyes may grow, If not quite dim, yet rather so; Yet yours from others they shall know, Twenty years hence. Twenty years hence, though it may hap That I be call’d to take a nap In a cool cell where thunder-clap Was never heard, There breathe but o’er my arch of grass A not too sadly sigh’d ‘Alas!’ And I shall catch, ere you can pass, That wingèd word.

PAST ruin’d Ilion Helen lives, Alcestis rises from the shades; Verse calls them forth; ’tis verse that gives Immortal youth to mortal maids. Soon shall Oblivion’s deepening veil Hide all the peopled hills you see, The gay, the proud, while lovers hail These many summers you and me.

PROUD word you never spoke, but you will speak Four not exempt from pride some future day. Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek, Over my open volume you will say, ‘This man loved me’—then rise and trip away.

WHY, why repine, my pensive friend, At pleasures slipp’d away? Some the stern Fates will never lend, And all refuse to stay. I see the rainbow in the sky, The dew upon the grass; I see them, and I ask not why They glimmer or they pass. With folded arms I linger not To call them back; ’twere vain: In this, or in some other spot, I know they’ll shine again.

MOTHER, I cannot mind my wheel; My fingers ache, my lips are dry: O, if you felt the pain I feel! But O, who ever felt as I? No longer could I doubt him true— All other men may use deceit; He always said my eyes were blue, And often swore my lips were sweet.

MILD is the parting year, and sweet The odour of the falling spray; Life passes on more rudely fleet, And balmless is its closing day. I wait its close, I court its gloom, But mourn that never must there fall Or on my breast or on my tomb The tear that would have soothed it all.

REMAIN, ah not in youth alone! —Tho’ youth, where you are, long will stay— But when my summer days are gone, And my autumnal haste away. ‘Can I be always by your side?’ No; but the hours you can, you must, Nor rise at Death’s approaching stride, Nor go when dust is gone to dust.

HERE, ever since you went abroad, If there be change, no change I see: I only walk our wonted road, The road is only walk’d by me. Yes; I forgot; a change there is— Was it of that you bade me tell? I catch at times, at times I miss The sight, the tone, I know so well. Only two months since you stood here? Two shortest months? Then tell me why Voices are harsher than they were, And tears are longer ere they dry.

IN Clementina’s artless mien Lucilla asks me what I see, And are the roses of sixteen Enough for me? Lucilla asks, if that be all, Have I not cull’d as sweet before: Ah yes, Lucilla! and their fall I still deplore. I now behold another scene, Where Pleasure beams with Heaven’s own light, More pure, more constant, more serene, And not less bright. Faith, on whose breast the Loves repose, Whose chain of flowers no force can sever, And Modesty who, when she goes, Is gone for ever.

‘DO you remember me? or are you proud?’ Lightly advancing thro’ her star-trimm’d crowd, Ianthe said, and look’d into my eyes. ‘A yes, a yes to both: for Memory Where you but once have been must ever be, And at your voice Pride from his throne must rise.’

TELL me not what too well I know About the bard of Sirmio. Yes, in Thalia’s son Such stains there are—as when a Grace Sprinkles another’s laughing face With nectar, and runs on.

STAND close around, ye Stygian set, With Dirce in one boat convey’d! Or Charon, seeing, may forget That he is old and she a shade.

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 crookèd 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 Like play and song, and shepherds too. Alciphron. I like the shepherds very well, And song and play, as you can tell. But there is play, I sadly fear, And song I would not have you hear. Leucippe. What can it be? What can it be? Alciphron. To you may none of them repeat The play that you have play’d with me, The song that made your bosom beat. Leucippe. Don’t keep your arm about my waist. Alciphron. Might you not stumble? Leucippe. Well then, do. But why are we in all this haste? Alciphron. To sing. Leucippe. Alas! and not play too?

YEARS, many parti-colour’d years, Some have crept on, and some have flown Since first before me fell those tears I never could see fall alone. Years, not so many, are to come, Years not so varied, when from you One more will fall: when, carried home, I see it not, nor hear Adieu.

THERE is a mountain and a wood between us, Where the lone shepherd and late bird have seen us Morning and noon and eventide repass. Between us now the mountain and the wood Seem standing darker than last year they stood, And say we must not cross—alas! alas!

THE leaves are falling; so am I; The few late flowers have moisture in the eye; So have I too. Scarcely on any bough is heard Joyous, or even unjoyous, bird The whole wood through. Winter may come: he brings but nigher His circle (yearly narrowing) to the fire Where old friends meet. Let him; now heaven is overcast, And spring and summer both are past, And all things sweet.

I STROVE with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm’d both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.