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With attic emery and oil,

The shining point for Wisdom's wand, Like those thou temperest 'mid the rills Descending from thy native hills. Without his governance, in vain

Manhood is strong, and Youth is bold.

If oftentimes the o'er-piled strain
Clogs in the furnace, and grows cold
Beneath his pinions deep and frore,...
And swells and melts and flows no more,
That is because the heat beneath

Pants in its cavern poorly fed.

Life springs not from the couch of Death, Nor Muse nor Grace can raise the dead; Unturn'd then let the mass remain, Intractable to sun or rain.

A marsh, where only flat leaves lie,
And showing but the broken sky,
Too surely is the sweetest lay
That wins the ear and wastes the day,
Where youthful Fancy pouts alone
And lets not Wisdom touch her zone.

He who would build his fame up high,
The rule and plummet must apply,
Nor say, "I'll do what I have plann'd,"
Before he try if loam or sand

Be still remaining in the place

Delved for each polished pillar's base.
With skilful eye and fit device

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Thou raisest every edifice,

Whether in sheltered vale it stand,
Or overlook the Dardan strand,
Amid the cypresses that mourn
Laodameia's love forlorn.

We both have run o'er half the space
Listed for mortal's earthly race;
We both have crossed life's fervid line,
And other stars before us shine:
May they be bright and prosperous
As those that have been stars for us!
Our course by Milton's light was sped,
And Shakespeare shining overhead:
Chatting on deck was Dryden too,
The Bacon of the rhyming crew;
None ever cross'd our mystic sea
More richly stored with thought than he;
Tho' never tender nor sublime,

He wrestles with and conquers Time.
To learn my lore on Chaucer's knee,
I left much prouder company;
Thee gentle Spenser fondly led,
But me he mostly sent to bed.

I wish them every joy above
That highly blessed spirits prove,

Save one: and that too shall be theirs,
But after many rolling years,

When 'mid their light thy light appears.

1833. 1837.

Walter Savage Landor.

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1855.

MEMORABILIA

Ан, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems and new!

But you were living before that,
And also you were living after;
And the memory I started at-

My starting moves your laughter!

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about:

For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest.

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Robert Browning.

TO ROBERT BROWNING

THERE is delight in singing, tho' none hear
Beside the singer; and there is delight

In praising, tho' the praiser sit alone
And see the prais'd far off him, far above.

Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's, Therefore on him no speech! and brief for

thee,

Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, No man hath walked along our roads with

step

So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse.

But warmer climes

Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the

breeze

Of Alpine heights thou playest with, borne on
Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where
The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.
Walter Savage Landor.

1846.

ON A BUST OF DANTE

SEE, from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim,
The father was of Tuscan song:
There but the burning sense of wrong,

Perpetual care and scorn, abide;
Small friendship for the lordly throng;
Distrust of all the world beside.

Faithful if this wan image be,
No dream his life was,-but a fight!
Could any Beatrice see

A lover in that anchorite?

To that cold Ghibelline's gloomy sight

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Who could have guessed the visions

came

Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light,
In circles of eternal flame?

The lips as Cuma's cavern close, The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin, The rigid front, almost morose, But for the patient hope within, Declare a life whose course hath been Unsullied still, though still severe, Which, through the wavering days of sin, Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.

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Not wholly such his haggard look When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed, With no companions save his book, To Corvo's hushed monastic shade; Where, as the Benedictine laid

His palm upon the convent's guest, The single boon for which he prayed Was peace, that pilgrim's one request.' 32

Peace dwells not here,-this rugged face Betrays no spirit of repose;

The sullen warrior sole we trace, The marble man of many woes. Such was his mien when first arose

The thought of that strange tale divine

When hell he peopled with his foes,
Dread scourge of many a guilty line. 40

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