Between, the glowing measure stole
That spoke the bard's inspired soul.
Sad were those strains, when hymn'd afar,
On the green vales of Malabar:
O'er seas beneath the golden morn
They travell'd, on the monsoon borne,
Thrilling the heart of Indian maid,
Beneath the wild banana's shade.
Leyden, a shepherd wails thy fate,
And Scotland knows her loss too late!
The day arrived-blest be the day,
Walter the Abbot came that way!
The sacred relic met his view-
Ah! well the pledge of heaven he knew.
He screw'd the chords, he tried a strain;
"Twas wild-he tuned and tried again;
Then pour'd the numbers bold and free,
The simple magic melody.
The land was charm'd to list his lays;
It knew the harp of ancient days.
The border chiefs, that long had been
In sepulchres unhearsed and green,
Pass'd from their mouldy vaults away,
In armour red, and stern array,
And by their moonlight halls were seen,
In visor, helm, and habergeon.
Even fairies sought our land again,
So powerful was the magic strain.
Blest be his generous heart for aye!
He told me where the relic lay;
Pointed my way with ready will,
Afar on Ettrick's wildest hill;
Watch'd my first notes with curious eye,
And wonder'd at my minstrelsy:
He little ween'd a parent's tongue
Such strains had o'er my cradle sung.
THIS vigorous but somewhat eccentric author, who has thrown out so many profound ideas in prose and verse, and who has defied his critics to match them if they can, was born at Ipsley Court, Warwickshire, on the 30th of January 1775. After a classical education at Rugby, he was entered of Trinity College, Oxford, where that indifference to established rule, by which his works are distinguished, manifested itself so strongly, that he was subjected to the punishment of rustication. When the insurrection broke out in Spain, he joined the insurgents in 1808; but the events which followed, on the establishment of the royal authority, were so little to his taste, that he abandoned the country in disgust. In 1815, he settled in Florence, since which period his visits to England have only been incidental.
As an author, Landor has written much, and well, upon a great variety of subjects; and his Imaginary Conversations is a work in which extensive scholarship is blended with profound and original thought. But, unfortunately, all his writings are pervaded with that defiance of the literary world, which no author, however talented, can indulge in with impunity; and thus, notwithstanding his avowed merits, he has never attained a correspondent popularity, either as a poet or a prose writer. His very orthography is stamped with this love of singularity, as if he would even spell, as well as think, for himself. The scholar and the man of taste, however, in spite of these defects, will always appreciate the productions of Landor.
Queen of the double sea, beloved of him
Who shakes the world's foundations, thou hast seen
Glory in all her beauty, all her forms;
Seen her walk back with Theseus when he left
The bones of Sciron bleaching to the wind,
Above the ocean's roar and cormorant's flight,
So high that vastest billows from above
Shew but like herbage waving in the mead;
Seen generations throng thy Isthmian games,
And pass away-the beautiful, the brave,
And them who sang their praises.
But, O Queen,
Audible still, and far beyond thy cliffs,
As when they first were utter'd, are those words
Divine which praised the valiant and the just;
And tears have often stopt, upon that ridge
So perilous, him who brought before his eye
The Colchian babes.
"Stay! spare him! save the last!
Medea!-is that blood? again! it drops
From my imploring hand upon my feet--
I will invoke the Eumenides no more-
I will forgive thee-bless thee-bend to thee
In all thy wishes-do but thou, Medea,
Tell me, one lives."
"And shall I too deceive?"
Cries from the firy car an angry voice;
And swifter than two falling stars descend
Two breathless bodies-warm, soft, motionless,
As flowers in stillest noon before the sun,
They lie three paces from him-such they lie
As when he left them sleeping side by side,
A mother's arm round each, a mother's cheeks
Between them, flush'd with happiness and love.
He was more changed than they were-doom'd to shew
Thee and the stranger, how defaced and scarr'd
Grief hunts us down the precipice of years,
And whom the faithless prey upon the last.
To give the inertest masses of our earth
Her loveliest forms was thine, to fix the gods
Within thy walls, and hang their tripods round
With fruits and foliage knowing not decay.
A nobler work remains: thy citadel
Invites all Greece: o'er lands and floods remote
Many are the hearts that still beat high for thee:
Confide then in thy strength, and unappall'd
Look down upon the plain, while yokemate kings
Run bellowing, where their herdsmen goad them on;
Instinct is sharp in them and terror true-
They smell the floor whereon their necks must lie.
There is a creature, dear to Heaven,
Tiny and weak, to whom is given
To enjoy the world while suns are bright
And shut grim winter from its sight-
Tamest of hearts that beat on wilds,
Tamer and tenderer than a child's-
The Dormouse-this he loved and taught
(Docile it is the day it's caught,
And fond of music, voice or string)
To stand before and hear her sing,
Or lie within her palm half closed,
Until another's interposed,
And claim'd the alcove wherein it lay,
Or held it with divided sway.
Say ye, that years roll on and ne'er return?
Say ye, the Sun who leaves them all behind,
Their great creator, cannot bring one back
With all his force, though he draw worlds around?
Witness me, little streams! that meet before
My happy dwelling; witness, Africo
And Mensola! that ye have seen at once
Twenty roll back, twenty as swift and bright
As are your swiftest and your brightest waves,
When the tall cypress o'er the Doccia
Hurls from his inmost boughs the latent snow.
Go, and go happy, pride of my past days
And solace of my present, thou whom Fate
Alone hath sever'd from me! One step higher
Must yet be mounted, high as was the last:
Friendship, with faltering accent, says Depart!
And take the highest seat below the crown'd.
Child of a day, thou knowest not,
The tears that overflow thy urn,
The gushing eyes that read thy lot,
Nor, if thou knowest, couldst return!
And why the wish? the pure and blest
Watch like thy mother o'er thy sleep;
O peaceful night! O envied rest!
Thou wilt not ever see her weep.
ON A POET IN A WELSH CHURCHYARD.
Kind souls! who strive what pious hand shall bring
The first-found crocus from reluctant Spring,
Or blow your wintry fingers while they strew
This sunless turf with rosemary and rue,
Bend o'er your lovers first, but mind to save
One sprig of each to trim a poet's grave.
FROM INES DE CASTRO AT CINTRA.
Revere our holy Church; though some within Have erred, and some are slow to lead us right, Stopping to pry when staff and lamp should be In hand, and the way whiten underneath.
Ines, the Church is now a charnel-house,
Where all that is not rottenness is drowth.
Thou hast but seen its gate hung round with flowers,
And heard the music whose serenest waves
Cover its gulfs and dally with its shoals,
And hold the myriad insects in light play
Above it, loth to leave its sunny sides.
Look at this central edifice! come close!
Men's bones and marrow its materials are,
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