Advice

TO write as your sweet mother does
Is all you wish to do.
Play, sing, and smile for others, Rose!
Let others write for you.

Or mount again your Dartmoor grey,
And I will walk beside,
Until we reach that quiet bay
Which only hears the tide.

Then wave at me your pencil, then
At distance bid me stand,
Before the cavern’d cliff, again
The creature of your hand.

And bid me then go past the nook
To sketch me less in size;
There are but few content to look
So little in your eyes.

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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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On The Conflagration Of The Po

Why is, and whence, the Po in flames? and why
In consternation do its borderers raise
Imploring hands to mortal men around
And Gods above? Are Gods implacable?
Or men bereft of sight at such a blaze?
Apollo hath no more a son; his breath
Is stifled, and smoke only fills the air
Where once was fire, and men to men were true.
Fierce ones and faithless now approach the waste,
Who look transversely with an evil eye,
And scowl and threaten, and uplift the sword,
And, if they lower it, 'tis but to grasp more
And more of amber left on either bank. Apollo hates the land he once so loved,
Nor swan is seen nor nightingale is heard
Nigh the dead river and affrighted vale,
For every Nymph shed there incessant tears,
And into amber hardened all they shed.

poem by Walter Savage Landor
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Myrtis

Friends, whom she lookt at blandly from her couch
And her white wrist above it, gem-bedewed,
Were arguing with Pentheusa: she had heard
Report of Creon's death, whom years before
She listened to, well-pleas'd; and sighs arose;
For sighs full often fondle with reproofs
And will be fondled by them. When I came
After the rest to visit her, she said,
'Myrtis! how kind! Who better knows than thou
The pangs of love? and my first love was he!'
Tell me (if ever, Eros! are reveal'd
Thy secrets to the earth) have they been true
To any love who speak about the first?
What! shall these holier lights, like twinkling stars
In the few hours assign'd them, change their place,
And, when comes ampler splendour, disappear?
Idler I am, and pardon, not reply,
Implore from thee, thus questioned; well I know
Thou strikest, like Olympian Jove, but once.

poem by Walter Savage Landor
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Memory

THE MOTHER of the Muses, we are taught,
Is Memory: she has left me; they remain,
And shake my shoulder, urging me to sing
About the summer days, my loves of old.
Alas! alas! is all I can reply.
Memory has left with me that name alone,
Harmonious name, which other bards may sing,
But her bright image in my darkest hour
Comes back, in vain comes back, call’d or uncall’d.
Forgotten are the names of visitors
Ready to press my hand but yesterday;
Forgotten are the names of earlier friends
Whose genial converse and glad countenance
Are fresh as ever to mine ear and eye;
To these, when I have written and besought
Remembrance of me, the word Dear alone
Hangs on the upper verge, and waits in vain.
A blessing wert thou, O oblivion,
If thy stream carried only weeds away,
But vernal and autumnal flowers alike

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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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From “Myrtis”

FRIENDS, whom she look’d at blandly from her couch
And her white wrist above it, gem-bedew’d,
Were arguing with Pentheusa: she had heard
Report of Creon’s death, whom years before
She listen’d to, well-pleas’d; and sighs arose;
For sighs full often fondle with reproofs
And will be fondled by them. When I came
After the rest to visit her, she said,
“Myrtis! how kind! Who better knows than thou
The pangs of love? and my first love was he!”
Tell me (if ever, Eros! are reveal’d
Thy secrets to the earth) have they been true
To any love who speak about the first?
What! shall these holier lights, like twinkling stars
In the few hours assign’d them, change their place,
And, when comes ampler splendor, disappear?
Idler I am, and pardon, not reply,
Implore from thee, thus question’d; well I know
Thou strikest, like Olympian Jove, but once.

poem by Walter Savage Landor
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The Maid's Lament

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 torn 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.

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poem by Walter Savage Landor
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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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