Well I Remember How You Smiled

Well I remember how you smiled
To see me write your name upon
The soft sea-sand... "O! what a child!
You think you're writing upon stone!"

I have since written what no tide
Shall ever wash away, what men
Unborn shall read o'er ocean wide
And find Ianthe's name 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

Time To Be Wise

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

An Invocation

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

To Robert Browning

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

The Lover

Walter Savage Landor, Simple Poetry

English

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Well I remember how you smiled

Well I remember how you smiled
To see me write your name upon
The soft sea-sand--'_O! what a child!_
_You think you're writing upon stone!_'
I have since written what no tide
Shall ever wash away, what men
Unborn shall read o'er ocean wide
And find Ianthe's name again.

Walter Savage Landor

Little Florence Gray

I was in Greece. It was the hour of noon,
And the Ægean wind had dropped asleep
Upon Hymettus, and the thymy isles
Of Salamis and Ægina lay hung
Like clouds upon the bright and breathless sea.
I had climbed up th Acropolis at morn,
And hours had fled as time will in a dream
Amid its deathless ruins, for the air
Is full of spirits in these mighty fanes,
And they walk with you! As it sultrier grew,
I laid me down within a shadow deep
Of a tall column of the Parthenon,
And in an absent idleness of thought
I scrawled upon the smooth and marble base.
Tell me, O memory, what wrote I there?
The name of a sweet child I knew at Rome!

I was in Asia. Twas a peerless night
Upon the plains of Sardis, and the moon,
Touching my eyelids through the wind-stir...

Nathaniel Parker Willis

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

Ianthe! You Are Call'd To Cross The Sea

Ianthe! you are call'd to cross the sea!
A path forbidden me!
Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds
Upon the mountain-heads,
How often we have watcht him laying down
His brow, and dropt our own
Against each other's, and how faint and short
And sliding the support!
What will succeed it now? Mine is unblest,
Ianthe! nor will rest
But on the very thought that swells with pain.
O bid me hope again!
O give me back what Earth, what (without you)
Not Heaven itself can do,
One of the golden days that we have past,
And let it be my last!
Or else the gift would be, however sweet,
Fragile and incomplete.

Walter Savage Landor

Ianthe's Question

Do you remember me? or are you proud?
Lightly advancing thro her star-trimmd crowd,
Ianthe said, and lookd into my eyes.
A yes, a yes to both: for Memory
Where you but once have been must ever be,
And at your voice Pride from his throne must rise.

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