Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams By Walter Savage Landor: Edited with notes by Charles G. Crump |
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 | Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams |  |
CLXVIII. TO A LADY ON COMING OF AGE.
Fear not my frequent verse may raiseTo your clear brow the vulgar gaze.
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For day yet happier; then no more.
Believe (youth's happy creed!) believe
That never can bright morns deceive;
That brighter must arise for you
Than ever the proud sun rode through.
It has been said, on wedlock-land
Some paths are thorny, more are sand.
I hope the coming spring may show
How little they who say it, know.
Meanwhile with tranquil breast survey
The trophies of the present day.
When twenty years their course have run,
Anxious we wait the following one.
Lo! Fortune in full pomp descends
Surrounded by her host of friends,
And Beauty moves, in passing by,
With loftier port and steadier eye.
Alas, alas! when these are flown,
Shall there be nothing quite your own?
Not Beauty from her stores can give
The mighty charm that makes us live,
Nor shieldless Fortune overcome
The shadows that besiege the tomb.
You, better guarded, may be sure
Your name for ages will endure,
While all the powerful, all the proud,
All that excite the clamorous crowd,
With truncheon or with diadem,
Shall lie one mingled mass with them.
Chide you our praises? You alone
Can doubt of glories fairly won.
Genius, altho' he seldom decks
Where beauty does the softer sex,
Approaches you with accents bland,
Attunes your voice, directs your hand.
And soon will fix upon your brow
A crown as bright as Love does now.
| Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams | |