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Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams

By Walter Savage Landor: Edited with notes by Charles G. Crump

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XXVII.

[Could but the dream of night return by day]

Could but the dream of night return by day,
And thus again the true Ianthe say,

97

“Altho' some other I should live to see
As fond, no other can have charms for me.
No, in this bosom none shall ever share,
Firm is, and tranquil be, your empire there!
If wing'd with amorous fear the unfetter'd slave
Stole back the struggling heart she rashly gave,
Weak, they may call it, weak, but not untrue;
Its destination, though it fail'd, was you.
So to some distant isle the unconscious dove
Bears at her breast the billet dear to love,
But drops, while viewless lies the happier scene,
On some hard rock or desert beach between.”