Walter Savage Landor

Autumn

MILD is the parting year, and sweet The odour of the falling spray; Life passes on more rudely fleet, And balmless is its closing day.

The Evening Star

Smiles soon abate; the boisterous throes Of anger long burst forth; Inconstantly the south-wind blows, But steadily the north.

God Scatters Beauty

God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers O'er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours. A hundred lights in every temple burn, And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn.

Rose Aylmer

Ah, what avails the sceptred race! Ah, what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine.

Soon, O Ianthe! Life is o'er

Soon, O Ianthe! life is o'er, And sooner beauty's heavenly smile: Grant only (and I ask no more), Let love remain that little while.

On an Eclipse of the Moon

Struggling, and faint, and fainter didst thou wane, O Moon! and round thee all thy starry train Came forth to help thee, with half-open eyes, And trembled every one with still surprise,

In spring and summer winds may blow

In spring and summer winds may blow, And rains fall after, hard and fast; The tender leaves, if beaten low, Shine but the more for shower and blast

Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel

MOTHER, I cannot mind my wheel; My fingers ache, my lips are dry: O, if you felt the pain I feel! But O, who ever felt as I?

On His Eightieth Birthday

To my ninth decade I have tottered on, And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; She, who once led me where she would, is gone, So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready.

Child of a Day

Child of a day, thou knowest not The tears that overflow thy urn, The gushing eyes that read thy lot, Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return!

One Lovely Name

One lovely name adorns my song, And, dwelling in the heart, Forever falters at the tongue, And trembles to depart.

The Three Roses

When the buds began to burst, Long ago, with Rose the First I was walking; joyous then Far above all other men,

Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows, because our sun is setting.

Ambition is but Avarice on stilts and masked.

Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend: such nails are then thrown into the dust or into the furnace.

We must not indulge in unfavourable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe that they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain.

Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one.

There are no fields of amaranth on this side of the grave: there are no voices, O Rhodopè! that are not soon mute, however tuneful: there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at …

Stand close around, ye Stygian set, with Dirce in the boat conveyed, Lest Charon, seeing her, forget, That he is old and she a shade.

Wearers of rings and chains! Pray do not take the pains To set me right. In vain my faults ye quote; I write as others wrote On Sunium’s hight.

I am heartily glad to witness your veneration for a Book which to say nothing of its holiness or authority, contains more specimens of genius and taste than any other volume in existence.

The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall; and thus insensibly are we, as years close around us, detached from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrow.

Around the child bend all the three Sweet Graces: Faith, Hope, Charity. Around the man bend other faces; Pride, Envy, Malice, are his Graces.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved; and next to Nature, Art. I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.