Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

To one who in this lonely isle hath been The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life,

From the young day when first thy infant hand

Pluck'd witless the weak flowers, till thine arm

Could bend that bow heroic to all times. Show thy heart's secret to an ancient Power

Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones

For prophecies of thee, and for the sake Of loveliness new born."-Apollo then, With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, Thus answer'd, while his white melodious throat

Throbb'd with the syllables.-" Mnemosyne!

Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how:

Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest?

Why should I strive to show what from thy lips

Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark,

And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes: I strive to search wherefore I am so sad, Until a melancholy numbs my limbs ; And then upon the grass I sit, and moan, Like one who once had wings.-O why should I

Feel curs'd and thwarted, when the liegeless air

Yields to my step aspirant? why should I

Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet?

Goddess benign, point forth some un

known thing:

Are there not other regions than this isle?

What are the stars? There is the sun,

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,

Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal."-Thus the
God,

While his enkindled eyes, with level glance

Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast kept

Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne. Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush

All the immortal fairness of his limbs; Most like the struggle at the gate of death;

Or liker still to one who should take leave

Of pale immortal death, and with a pang

As hot as death's is chill, with fierce

[blocks in formation]

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms !
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful- a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long. For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said— "I love thee true."

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept, and sigh'd full

sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four.

And there she lulléd me asleep.

And there I dream'd-Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream'd On the cold hill's side.

I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried-"La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!”

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the

lake

And no birds sing.

1819. May 10, 1820.

[blocks in formation]

LANDOR

LIST OF REFERENCES

EDITIONS

Works, 8 volumes, Chapman & Hall, London, 1874-76. Works, 10 vol. umes, edited by C. G. Crump, The Macmillan Co. Poems, Dialogues in Verse, and Epigrams, 2 volumes, edited by C. G. Crump, the Macmillan Co. Letters and other unpublished Writings, edited by S. Wheeler, London, 1897. Letters, Private and Public, edited by S. Wheeler, London, 1899. Selections from Landor, edited by Sidney Colvin (Golden Treasury Series).

BIOGRAPHY

*FORSTER (John), W. S. Landor: A Biography, 2 volumes, 1869; also (abridged) as Vol. I. of Works, 1874. *COLVIN (Sidney), Landor (English Men of Letters Series).

REMINISCENCES AND EARLY CRITICISM

ROBINSON (H. C.), Diary, Vol. II, Chap. XII, etc. MITFORD (M. R.), Recollections of a Literary Life. BROWNING (Elizabeth Barrett), in Horne's New Spirit of the Age. EMERSON, Natural History of Intellect. DE QUINCEY, Masson's edition, Vol. XI. DUFFY (C. Gavan), Conversations with Carlyle. HUNT (Leigh), Lord Byron and his Contemporaries. BLESSINGTON (Marguerite), The Idler in Italy. MADDEN (R. R.), The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington. See also the Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

LATER CRITICISM

* BOYNTON (H. W.), Poetry of Landor, in the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 90, page 126, July, 1902, * COLVIN (Sidney), Preface to the volume of Selections in the Golden Treasury Series. * DOWDEN (Edward), Studies in Literature. EVANS (E. W.), A Study of Landor. HENLEY (W. E.), Views and Reviews. LEE (Vernon), Studies in Literary Psychology: The Rhetoric of Landor, in the Contemporary Review, Vol. 84, Page 856, 1903. LOWELL (J. R.), Latest Literary Essays and Addresses. OLIPHANT (Margaret), Victorian Age of English Literature. SAINTSBURY (George), Essays in English Literature, Second Series. SCUDDER (H. E.), Men and Letters: Landor as a Classic. * STEDMAN (E C.), Victorian Poets. STEPHEN (Leslie), Hours in a Library, Vol. II. *SWINBURNE, Miscella* WOODBERRY (G. E.), Studies in Letters and Life.

nies.

BROOKS (S. W.), English Poets. DE VERE (Aubrey), Essays, chiefly on Poetry, Vol. II. DEVEY (J.), Comparative Estimate of Modern English Poets. DIXON (W. M.), English Poetry. DOWDEN (Edward), French

Revolution and English Literature. NENCIONI (E.), Letteratura inglese: Colvin, Biografia di Landor. PAYNE (W. M.), Greater English Poets of the Nineteenth Century, 1907. SYMONS (A.), The Poetry of Landor; in the Atlantic, June, 1906. SYMONS (A.), The Romantic Movement in English Poetry, 1909. WHITING (L.), The Florence of Landor, 1905.

TRIBUTES IN VERSE.

**WATSON (W.), Landor's Hellenics. JAPP (A. H.), Landor, in Stedman's Victorian Anthology. ** SWINBURNE, Poems and Ballads, First Series: In Memory of Walter Savage Landor. * SWINBURNE, Studies in Song: Song for the Centenary of Walter Savage Landor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WHEELER (S.), in Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of Landor.

LANDOR

GEBIR
BOOK I

[blocks in formation]

Nor shield immense nor coat of massive mail,

But that upon their towering heads they
bore

Each a huge stone, refulgent as the stars.
This told she Dalica, then cried aloud,
"If on your bosom laying down my head
I sobb'd away the sorrows of a child,
If I have always, and Heav'n knows I
have,

Next to a mother's held a nurse's name,
Succor this one distress, recall those

days,

Love me, tho' 'twere because you lov'd me then."

But whether confident in magic rites Or touched with sexual pride to stand implor'd,

Dalica smiled, then spake: "Away those fears,

Though stronger than the strongest of his kind,

He falls on me devolve that charge; he falls.

Rather than fly him, stoop thou to al-
lure;

Nay, journey to his tents. A city stood
Upon that coast, they say, by Sidad
built,
[ground
Whose father Gad built Gadir; on this
Perhaps he sees an ample room for war.
Persuade him to restore the walls him-

self

« AnteriorContinuar »