Tydeus! and worthy of thy son. "Tis Ajax wears them now; for he Rules over Adria's stormy sea.

He threw them to the friend who lost
(By the dim judgment of the host)
Those wet with tears which Thetis gave
The youth most beauteous of the brave.
In vain! the insatiate soul would go
For comfort to his peers below.
Clash! ere we leave them all the plain,
Clash! Io Paean! once again.1 1836.

THE DEATH OF ARTEMIDORA 2 "ARTEMIDORA! Gods invisible, While thou art lying faint along the couch,

Have tied the sandal to thy slender feet And stand beside thee, ready to convey Thy weary steps where other rivers flow. Refreshing shades will waft thy weari

ness

Away, and voices like thy own come near And nearer, and solicit an embrace.'

Artemidora sigh'd, and would have pressed

The hand now pressing hers, but was too weak.

Iris stood over her dark hair unseen While thus Elpenor spake. He looked into Eyes that had given light and life erewhile

To those above them, but now dim with tears

And wakefulness. 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; and now a loud deep sob

Swell'd thro' the darken'd chamber; 'twas not hers. 1836.

CORINNA TO TANAGRA, FROM

ATHENS

TANAGRA! think not I forget

Thy beautifully storied streets; Be sure my memory bathes yet

In clear Thermodon, and yet greets The blithe and liberal shepherd-boy,

1 See Landor's own comment on this poem, p. 440.

21836, in Pericles and Aspasia. Slightly altered and included in the Hellenics, 1846, etc., from which the present text is taken. See Colvin's comment on the poem, in his Life of Landor, pp. 193-4.

THOSE who have laid the harp aside
And turn'd to idler things,
From very restlessness have tried
The loose and dusty strings,

And, catching back some favorite strain,
Run with it o'er the chords again.

But Memory is not a Muse,

O Wordsworth! though 'tis said
They all descend from her, and use
To haunt her fountain-head:
That other men should work for me
In the rich mines of Poesie,

Pleases me better than the toil

Of smoothing under hardened hand, With attic emery and oil,

The shining point for Wisdom's wand, Like those thou temperest 'mid the rills Descending from thy native hills. Without his governance, in vain, Manhood is strong, and Youth is bold.

If oftentimes the o'er-piled strain,

Clogs in the furnace and grows cold Beneath his pinions deep and frore, And swells and melts and flows no more,

That is because the heat beneath

Pants in its cavern poorly fed. Life springs not from the couch of Death,

Nor Muse nor Grace can raise the dead;

Unturn'd then let the mass remain,
Intractable to sun or rain.

A marsh, where only flat leaves lie,
And showing but the broken sky,
Too surely is the sweetest lay
That wins the ear and wastes the day,
Where youthful Fancy pouts alone
And lets not Wisdom touch her zone.

He who would build his fame up high,
The rule and plummet must apply.
Nor say, "I'll do what I have plann'd,"

Before he try if loam or sand
Be still remaining in the place
Delved for each polished pillar's base.
With skilful eye and fit device
Thou raisest every edifice,
Whether in sheltered vale it stand,
Or overlook the Dardan strand,
Amid the cypresses that mourn
Laodameia's love forlorn.

We both have run o'er half the space
Listed for mortal's earthly race;
We both have crossed life's fervid line,
And other stars before us shine:
May they be bright and prosperous
As those that have been stars for us!
Our course by Milton's light was sped,
And Shakespeare shining overhead :
Chatting on deck was Dryden too,
The Bacon of the rhyming crew;
None ever cross'd our mystic sea
More richly stored with thought than he;
Tho' never tender nor sublime,
He wrestles with and conquers Time.
To learn my lore on Chaucer's knee,
I left much prouder company;
Thee gentle Spenser fondly led,
But me he mostly sent to bed.

I wish them every joy above
That highly blessed spirits prove,
Save one and that too shall be theirs,
But after many rolling years,
When 'mid their light thy light appears.
1833. 1837.

TO JOSEPH ABLETT

LORD of the Celtic dells, Where Clwyd listens as his minstrel

tells

Of Arthur, or Pendragon, or perchance The plumes of flashy France,

Or, in dark region far across the main, Far as Grenada in the world of Spain,

Warriors untold to Saxon ear, Until their steel-clad spirits reappear; How happy were the hours that held Thy friend (long absent from his native home)

Amid thy scenes with thee! how wide afield

From all past cares and all to come!

What hath Ambition's feverish grasp what hath

Inconstant Fortune, panting Hope; What Genius, that should cope

"Take what hath been for years delay'd, And fear not that the leaves will fall One hour the earlier from thy coronal." Ablett! thou knowest with what even hand

I waved away the offer'd seat Among the clambering, clattering, stilted great,

The rulers of our land;

Nor crowds nor kings can lift me up,
Nor sweeten Pleasure's purer cup.

Thou knowest how, and why, are dear to me

My citron groves of Fiesole,

My chirping Affrico, my beechwood nook,

My Naiads, with feet only in the brook, Which runs away and giggles in their

faces,

Yet there they sit, nor sigh for other places.

'Tis not Pelasgian wall,

By him made sacred whom alone
Twere not profane to call
The bard divine, nor (thrown
Far under me) Valdarno, nor the crest
Of Vallombrosa in the crimson east.

Here can I sit or roam at will: Few trouble me, few wish me ill, Few come across me, few too near ; Here all my wishes make their stand; Here ask I no one's voice or hand; Scornful of favor, ignorant of fear.

Yon vine upon the maple bough Flouts at the hearty wheat below; Away her venal wines the wise man sends,

While those of lower stem he brings

From inmost treasure vault, and sings Their worth and age among his chosen friends.

Behold our Earth, most nigh the sun Her zone least opens to the genial heat, But farther off her veins more freely

run:

'Tis thus with those who whirl about the great; [mote The nearest shrink and shiver, we reMay open-breasted blow the pastoral oat. 1834. 1837.1

1 This poem had been printed in an earlier form, containing lines to Coleridge, in Leigh Hunt's London Journal, December 3, 1834. See Colvin's Life of Landor. note to p. 142.

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 believed?)
Weary with age, but unoppressed by
pain,

To close in thy soft clime my quiet day And rest my bones in the Mimosa's shade.

Hope! Hope! few ever cherished thee so little;

Few are the heads thou hast so rarely
raised;
[well,
But thou didst promise this, and all was
For we are fond of thinking where to lie
When every pulse hath ceased, when the
lone heart

Can lift no aspiration-reasoning
As if the sight were unimpaired by death,
Were unobstructed by the coffin-lid,
And the sun cheered corruption! Over
all

The smiles of nature shed a potent charm,

And light us to our chamber at the grave. 1835. 1846.