To Age

WELCOME, old friend! These many years

Have we lived door by door;

The fates have laid aside their shears

Perhaps for some few more.

I was indocile at an age

When better boys were taught,

But thou at length hast made me sage,

If I am sage in aught.

Little I know from other men,

Too little they know from me,

But thou hast pointed well the pen

That writes these lines to thee.

Thanks for expelling Fear and Hope,

One vile, the other vain;

One's scourge, the other's telescope,

I shall not see again.

Rather what lies before my feet

My notice shall engage--

He who hath braved Youth's dizzy heat

Dreads not the frost of Age.

Walter Savage Landor

The Evening Star

SMILES soon abate; the boisterous throes

Of anger long burst forth;

Inconstantly the south-wind blows,

But steadily the north.

Thy star, O Venus! often changes

Its radiant seat above,

The chilling pole-star never ranges --

'Tis thus with Hate and Love.

Walter Savage Landor

Mild is the Parting Year

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.

Walter Savage Landor

Rose Aylmer

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 of sighs

I consecrate to thee.

Walter Savage Landor

Mother, I Cannot Mind My Wheel...

MOTHER, I cannot mind my wheel;

My fingers ache, my lips are dry:

Oh! if you felt the pain I feel!

But Oh, 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.

Walter Savage Landor

To Zoë

AGAINST the groaning mast I stand,

The Atlantic surges swell,

To bear me from my native land

And Zoë's wild farewell.

From billow upon billow hurl'd

I can yet hear her say,

`And is there nothing in the world

Worth one short hour's delay?'

`Alas, my Zoë! were it thus,

I should not sail alone,

Nor seas nor fates had parted us,

But are you all my own?'

Thus were it, never would burst forth

My sighs, Heaven knows how true!

But, though to me of little worth,

The world is much to you.

`Yes,' you shall say, when once the dream

(So hard to break!) is o'er,

`My love was very dear to him,

My fame and peace were more.'

Walter Savage Landor

Very True, The Linnets Sing

VERY true, the linnets sing

Sweetest in the leaves of spring:

You have found in all these leaves

That which changes and deceives,

And, to pine by sun or star,

Left them, false ones as they are.

But there be who walk beside

Autumn's, till they all have died,

And who lend a patient ear

To low notes from branches sere.

Walter Savage Landor

Why, Why Repine

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.

Walter Savage Landor

The Chrysolites and Rubies Bacchus Brings

THE chrysolites and rubies Bacchus brings

To crown the feast where swells the broad-vein'd brow,

Where maidens blush at what the minstrel sings,

They who have coveted may covet now.

Bring me, in cool alcove, the grape uncrush'd,

The peach of pulpy cheek and down mature,

Where every voice (but bird's or child's) is hush'd,

And every thought, like the brook nigh, runs pure.

Walter Savage Landor

Death Stands Above Me

DEATH stands above me, whispering low

I know not what into my ear:

Of his strange language all I know

Is, there is not a word of fear.

Walter Savage Landor

God Scatters Beauty

GOD scatters beauty as he scatters flowers

O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours.

A hundred lights in every temple burn,

And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn.

Walter Savage Landor

I Entreat You, Alfred Tennyson

I ENTREAT you, Alfred Tennyson,

Come and share my haunch of venison.

I have too a bin of claret,

Good, but better when you share it.

Tho' 'tis only a small bin,

There's a stock of it within.

And as sure as I'm a rhymer,

Half a butt of Rudeheimer.

Come; among the sons of men is one

Welcomer than Alfred Tennyson?

Walter Savage Landor

One Lovely Name

ONE lovely name adorns my song,

And, dwelling in the heart,

Forever falters at the tongue,

And trembles to depart.

Walter Savage Landor

To Robert Browning

THERE is delight in singing, though none hear

Beside the singer; and there is delight

In praising, though the praiser sit alone

And see the praised far off him, far above.

Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,

Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee,

Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,

No man hath walked along our roads with step

So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue

So varied in discourse. But warmer climes

Give brighter plumage, stronger wing; the breeze

Of Alpine heights thou playest with, borne on

Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

Walter Savage Landor

On His Seventy-fifth Birthday

I STROVE with none; for none was worth my strife;

Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;

I warmed both hands before the fire of life;

It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Walter Savage Landor

On His Eightieth Birthday

TO my ninth decade I have tottered on,

And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady;

She, who once led me where she would, is gone,

So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready.

Walter Savage Landor