She I love (alas in vain!)

She I love (alas in vain!)
Floats before my slumbering eyes:
When she comes she lulls my pain,
When she goes what pangs arise!
Thou whom love, whom memory flies,
Gentle Sleep! prolong thy reign!
If even thus she soothe my sighs,
Never let me wake again!

Walter Savage Landor

Walter Savage Landor was an English writer, poet, and dramatist. He is best known for his prose work, the 'Imaginary Conversations,' but also wrote numerous poems and plays. Landor had a tempestuous character and often found himself in conflict with authorities and contemporaries. Despite his combative nature, he was highly regarded by other literary figures such as Charles Dickens and Robert Browning. His works reflect his classical education and strong individualism.

Walter Savage Landor

From "Myrtis"

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

The Dragon-Fly

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

On Music

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

Ianthe

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

English

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On Music

Many love music but for musics sake;
Many because her touches can awake
Thoughts that repose within the breast half dead,
And rise to follow where she loves to lead.
What various feelings come from days gone by!
What tears from far-off sources dim the eye!
Few, when light fingers with sweet voices play,
And melodies swell, pause, and melt away,
Mind how at every touch, at every tone,
A spark of life hath glistend and hath gone.

Walter Savage Landor

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, calld or uncalld.
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 w...

Walter Savage Landor

Alma Venus

Only a breath - hardly a breath! The shore
Is still a huddled alabaster floor
Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,
Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,
Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold;
As though the sea, in an enchanted grave,
Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir
Softly, all lover, to the April moon:
Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware
Of a most delicate balm upon the air,
Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!

Not of the earth it was - no living thing
Moves in the iron landscape far or near,
Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow,
Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing,
Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear
Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray,
A lone red squirrel makes believe to play,
N...

Richard Le Gallienne

In After Time

No, my own love of other years!
No, it must never be.
Much rests with you that yet endears,
Alas! but what with me?
Could those bright years oer me revolve
So gay, oer you so fair,
The pearl of life we would dissolve
And each the cup might share.
You show that truth can neer decay,
Whatever fate befalls;
I, that the myrtle and the bay
Shoot fresh on ruind walls.

Walter Savage Landor

In Memory of Walter Savage Landor

Back to the flower-town, side by side,
The bright months bring,
New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,
Freedom and spring.

The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,
Filled full of sun;
All things come back to her, being free;
All things but one.

In many a tender wheaten plot
Flowers that were dead
Live, and old suns revive; but not
That holier head.

By this white wandering waste of sea,
Far north, I hear
One face shall never turn to me
As once this year:

Shall never smile and turn and rest
On mine as there,
Nor one most sacred hand be prest
Upon my hair.

I came as one whose thoughts half linger,
Half run before;
The youngest to the oldest singer
That England bore.

I found him whom I shal...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

To Youth

Where art thou gone, light-ankled Youth?
With wing at either shoulder,
And smile that never left thy mouth
Until the Hours grew colder:

Then somewhat seemd to whisper near
That thou and I must part;
I doubted it; I felt no fear,
No weight upon the heart.

If aught befell it, Love was by
And rolld it off again;
So, if there ever was a sigh,
T was not a sigh of pain.

I may not call thee back; but thou
Returnest when the hand
Of gentle Sleep waves oer my brow
His poppy-crested wand;

Then smiling eyes bend over mine,
Then lips once pressd invite;
But sleep hath given a silent sign,
And both, alas! take flight.

Walter Savage Landor