RECOLLECTIONS OF GREECE,
AND OTHER POEMS.
To the Memory
OF
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
THESE RECOLLECTIONS OF GREECE
ARE DEDICATED.
STANZAS
WRITTEN WHILE SAILING DOWN THE ADRIATIC.
1
By many an isle and forest peak
In darker purple gushing
The Adrian eddies stream and break,
And our light boat is rushing.
Warm airs from under a full moon
Against our foreheads pant,
And fan each bright and blue lagoon
Warm airs from the Levant.
2
Our bark runs down the watery slope
With tremulous sail out-blown,
Like Love down banks half-flowered, or Hope
Warbling o'er fields new-sown.
Eager as youth or vernal prime,
As swift as darting swallows,
The omens of a milder clime
She scents far off, and follows!
3
Ausonia yet stern Winter sways:
But Spring thus far hath flung
Her breath before her on the ways
Her feet shall tread ere long.
Even now vague smells of promised bowers
Float feebly o'er the shoals—
Thus softly float o'er Lethe's flowers
The body-waiting souls.
4
Great Dian mocks her brother's beams
With light as wide though colder:
Not from her brow alone it streams,
But half her breast and shoulder!
Old Ocean laughs in dream, or wakes
In smiles to meet her glance;
No rock so dun but shines and shakes
Beneath her silver lance.
5
On, winged bark, into the South!
If other breeze were none,
This music freshening from my mouth
Alone might waft thee on!
On, wild Swan, to the realms of light!
Though all thy plumes were rent,
Our rushing souls might wing thy flight
Into the Orient!
A NIGHT AT CORCYRA.
1
A hoary gleam through boughs prevailing
Tells me how near the ocean lies,
Here caged in many a waveless lake
By cypressed ridge and shadowy brake:
Far off the Nightingale is wailing:
More near the watery grot replies.
2
The forest growths are rocked and dandled
By airs with midnight odours faint,
Soft, separate airs, o'er feather'd grass
That pass me often and repass,
Like naked feet of Nymphs unsandalled
That tread cach lawn and alley quaint.
3
No voice is heard of mortal creature!
No voice—yet I am not alone:
Nausicaa and her virgin train
Still haunt the woodland, skirt the main,
And deck for me with human feature
Each glimmering branch and white-browed stone.
4
When with those Maids the Exile
sported,
The fire-flies lit, as now, the glen:
That rose its blush to-day which gave
And bosom to the aspiring wave,
Descends from one old Ocean courted,
On the same cliff it may be, then!
5
I see not now those hills whose summits
In August keep their ermined robes;
But feel their freshness—know that round
They gird the steely gulfs profound
With feet that mock the seamen's plummets,
And foreheads crowned with starry globes.
6
But see! vast beams divide the heaven;
The orange-groves their blossoms show;
Over yon kindling deep the moon
Will lash her snowy coursers soon:
Now, by her brow the East is riven!
And now the West returns the glow!
GRECIAN ODE.
1
Yes, yes, 'tis Greece! full many a fane
Around me gleams, as white
As when it gladdened cape or plain
The first time with its light;
And living choirs, far-eyed and virgin,
Once more through Time's old shade emerging,
With dew-brushed sandal and soft sound
Salute the dedicated ground.
2
Each hill of asphodel and bays
Sufficient deems its height
If steep enough its arch to raise
A temple into light.
From cape to cape, across the deep
The ‘wingèd Pines’ in panic sweep—
Among their forest-sires so ran
Shy wood-nymphs in the days of Pan!
3
In every bay the yearning billows
Swell up, as proud as when
White Nereids slid from purple pillows
Under old Homer's ken.
Above them still the Acacia throws
The warm shower of her sun-touched snows
Profusely as when Zephyr first
Deflowered the blooms himself had nursed.
4
Those theatres the white cliffs gird,
Those hollows grey and wide,
With tamarisk feathered, and moss-furred,
Those blue rifts far descried,
Those sinuous streams that blushing wander
Through labyrinthine oleander,
Those crocus mounds, that wind-flower hill—
Hail ancient land! 'tis Hellas still!
5
Range beyond range the mountains rise;
Smooth platform, and meet stage
If demi-gods for chariot prize
Fraternal strife should wage.
Glad clouds are launched along the wind,
As though each snowy tent enshrined
Olympian choirs borne lightly by
With sound of spheral melody.
6
Beheld that goat yon rift beneath,
Eyeing those rocks pine-cloven!
Nor lacks yon mound its living wreath
Of goatherds dance-inwoven,
Now measuring forth with Attic grace
(Like figures round a sculptured vase)
The accent of some mythic song,
Now hurled, a Bacchic group, along.
7
That old man 'neath the Palm who sits
Trolls loud a merry lay:
Round him as genial fancy flits
As when his month was May.
Still from the nectared air he quaffs
As happy health, as gaily laughs
As when he clomb yon breeze-swept hill,
And see, those maidens fly him still!
8
Yon mighty Ilex vast and grave
Flings far its restless shadow;
But through its trunk, a windowed cave,
Long lights divide the meadow:
Its roots all round like serpents creep.
And honey-dews its branches steep,
Thus beamed Dodona's oak afar
Fawn-haunted and oracular.
9
What vale was that wherein the Nine
Were used with Harmony to play?
Between the Juniper and Vine
They roam each vale to-day!
What stream was that o'er which, flower-wreathed,
Her passion Aphrodité breathed?
Each lilied bank that stays each rill
From that wild breath is quivering still!
10
Yon children chasing the wild bees
Have lips as full and fair
As Plato had, or Sophocles,
When bees sought honey there.
But song of bard or sage's lore
Those fields ennoble now no more:
It is not Greece—it must not be—
And yet, look up—the land is free!
11
I gazed round Marathon. The plain
In peaceful sunshine slept:
Eternal Sabbath there her reign
Inviolably kept:
Is this the battle-field? I cried—
An Eagle from on high replied
With shade far cast and clangour shrill
‘Yes, yes— 'tis Hellas, Hellas still!’
ODE TO THE PLANET MERCURY.
1
In these dull, proud days
Few how few there be
Songs or eyes that raise,
Star of Joy, to thee!
Profane, our hearts we spend
On earthly loves and wars;
Or kindle factory fires, far-kenned
With beam as red as Mars.
2
Not now the Poets soar
To Heaven, or tempt the seas:
On clouds and trees they pore;
Or men, dim-seen ‘like trees,’
Through melting mists that loom
Of metaphysic dreams;—
Or bend in apathetic gloom
Over Lethean streams.
3
Too fierce delights will come unbidden!
(Io Pæan, Io sing)
Too leaden thoughts are wisely chidden—
Such moods let Saturn bring.
Mirth is thine, and witching words
That thrill, not jar, our lute-strung hearts;
Devices sweet, and jocund chords,
And art of life—the art of arts!
4
O'er the woodland promontory
I beheld thee rise alone,
Car divine, and Youth whose glory
Lit that argent throne.
Wingèd Helm I knew, and eyes
Smiling glance with glance pursuing—
They shine, not flash, with sweet surprise
Winning Earth ere wooing!
5
Lo! that keen, exulting gladness
(Spite of Phœbus, Io sing)
Pierces all the heart of sadness
With bright, heavenly sting:
And preaches, he is wiser-witted
Who plays the wanton knave in jest,
Than those who live of joy self-cheated,
By false cares depressed.
6
Hermes to his cavern hollow
(Io Pæan, Io sing)
Lured the bright herd of Apollo,
And mocked the Delphic King,
As, bending his great brow, he pondered
Why the Babe this feat had done:
From maze to maze the Augur wandered,
Nor guessed that—cause was none.
7
New-born he slipped through bowers of myrtle
(Io Pæan, Io sing),
And, circumventing, scooped a turtle,
And wrought with bridge and string.
O teach our kind, those wanderers slow
Who toil life's weary waste along,
Each clod of earth, thus touched, would grow
A fount of gladsome song!
8
Jove's great sceptre thou hadst stolen:
(Io Pæan, Io sing)
With clouds the brow supreme was swollen,
Ruffled the Eagle's wing:
But thy winking shot bright weather
All the Olympian tempest round:
The grave-faced Eagle laughed: the Father
Thy locks with both hands crowned!
9
Mocked hast thou the breast of Pallas
With a love-shaft from thy lyre:
In self-despite the maids of Hellas
Felt thy fraudful fire.
Thee that monster triple-headed,
Couched in darkness, doth revere:
Souls on Stygian billows bedded
Leap thy lyre to hear.
10
Argus on the hill-side nodded,
Charmed perforce with pleasing sloth
Soon his spirit disembodied
Fluttered, a pale moth,
Fluttered round and round in error
O'er thy lustre softly glassed
In the forest streamlet's mirror,
Then to Hades passed.
11
Enough! thy beams which long have revelled
On the bosom of the wave
Reach now the ivies wind-dishevelled
Of thy mother's cave.
Under its arch of alabaster
She sits, or leans above the main:
Her happy heart beats fast and faster,
Beats to catch thy strain.
12
Tempering all things by the suasion
Of gay wiles and flatteries bland,
Wave o'er every heart-sick nation
Wave once more thy wand!
Io Pæan, Io Pæan!
Maia's child, henceforth of all
The stars that gem this blue Ægean
On thee alone I call!
ODE TO THE PLANET VENUS.
O brightest of the starry eyes,
Gladness of morn and evening's boast,
That from thy crimson paradise
Leadest the heavenly host!
Tell us what ministers to thee
That dauntless and perpetual glee;
And seest thou then indeed below
No deeds of Wrong, no shapes of Woe?
But thou from that celestial station
Glancing at will the wide earth o'er,
With equal gift of contemplation
Measurest the After and Before:—
Were ours a sight as keen and far as thine
Our joy were adamantine and divine.
Not only seest thou 'mid the storms
The ship-boy on some gasping deck,
But her not less whose arms
Flung wide even now in sleep's alarms
Shall yet enwreathe his neck!
Not only 'mid the untended bower
Some maid, in tears her loose hair steeping,
But him who comes, more near each hour,
And comes to stay that weeping!
Not her alone, the late bereaven,
O'er her breathless infant bending,
But wingèd choirs their plumes extending
To waft the innocent to Heaven!
Not only Glory of the Night and Morn,
Radiant with love and edged with luminous scorn,
The Tyrant seest thou, drowning in mad laughter
A nation's groans as with a stormy wind,
But Stygian snakes 'mid royal wreaths entwined,
And the black Vengeance pacing swiftly after!
O Planet blest!
The Lover's lamp, the Wanderer's pledge of rest!
Delight of men, that givest
More beams than thou receivest
From all the bright eyes met
Upon thy coronet!
Lily in Heaven, fresh springing;
White, panting antelope
Climbing the aerial mountain of perpetual Hope!
Sun-smitten, silver Dove,
Seated high up and singing
On Heaven's wide tree fruited with stars above!
O sacred Star,
That, brightening all things, seeing them as they are,
Take thou a free man's vows—
Few gifts do I require:
Shine on thy Poet's straw-roofed house;
His songs, his heart inspire!
TO A GREEK LADY.
1
Those eyes, dark stars of might and gladness!
Those eyes that breathe soft gloom, as they
Had gathered up the soul of midnight,
And poured it back into the day—
What secret sources feed their lustres?
Their Grecian fountains far away.
2
I see them lifting up their splendour
While from its lair some Thought upsprings
Or hangs in its aerial lightness
Suspended upon balanced wings:
Once more they flash, as on its object
That Thought in triumph drops and clings.
3
I see those lips whose every motion
Is music; fragrance every breath:
That cheek which glows like clouds of sunset,
Or gleams as mildly as a wreath
Of crimson fruit in clear streams imaged
Against a dark rich ground beneath!
4
Those hands in grace a moment folded,
Light hands with fancies light that play,
Lifted as though some lute or viol
Hung viewless in the air, and they
In passing brushed its cords of silver,
Or pointed the sweet sounds their way!
5
I know not quite if Soul or Spirit
Within thee dwell;—few care to know:—
At least without, and all around thee,
A soul is hovering, swift or slow,
In undulating halo bending
With every movement to and fro!
6
How fresh must be the airs that fanned thee
A warbler at thy mother's knee!
The wells, thy radiant baths; the ocean;
The infinitely-odoured lea;
The caverned and Eolian forests—
O Isle,
how beauteous thou must be!
7
That Queen who held in chains the Roman,
That Queen who spurned th' Augustan chains,
Sailed by it with her golden galleys;
Nor wholly yet the lustre wanes
That pageant flung beyond the margin,
And inland far o'er vales and plains.
8
Greece slumbers yet; but all her glories
Revive in thee: in thee restored
She walks the world, while round thy footsteps
The might of all her songs is poured;
And other times, and lands barbaric
Are taught what ancient Earth adored.
AN AGED GREEK.
I laugh whene'er I hear them say
‘At last his hair is white’—
Fools! 'Tis the star of Love all day
That crowns me with its light!
She, she whose evening revelry
Cheers visibly the skies,
Looks down from heaven and kisses me
With her far-touching eyes.
My heart, where'er in youth I strayed,
Her silver shafts could thrill:
And now this old, unbending head
She loves and honours still.
With these old locks each breath of air
Is proudly pleased to play:—
Then how, O wanton mockers, dare
Ye tell me I am grey?
THE PANTHEIST.
The Eagle feeds his eyes upon the sun,
And drives the light before him as he plunges
On through the east. The mild, smooth-sailing Dove
Hath snowy wings that waft her o'er the cloud.
The grey Pine tosses in the air, and flings
Music and light from his broad boughs. The Reed
Sighs in the dreary winds: the large sea-flower
Grows in its dark cave like a fair, blind child:
But we know not, and we can never know
Which is the noblest of those visible shapes,
Or which most blest. One all-pervading Spirit
Moves in them all, and is to them as life:—
The Spirit that encircles Space and Time;
That lifts the tides, and downward draws the stars,
That beats within the heart of this green globe;
That holds the universe upon his breast,
And mirrors it upon the mind of man.
THE PLATONIST.
Forget not thy great birth! that heavenly source
From which thy spirit flows, though now in sense
Immersed, and bound upon the rolling Earth.
Weep not, sad Exile, 'mid the winds, because
Thy sides lack wings. The radiance of the Past
Still girds thee, as a glorious sunset heaven
That glows behind the mountains. Would'st thou more?
Beauty is round thee wheresoe'er thou movest:
It sounds in every sound; from cloud and flower
It gleams upon thee. Be what thou hast been!
Draw from the utmost bounds of Life and Love
With one long sigh their powers into thy heart;
And Thought shall flow from thee in arrowy rays
Piercing all space: and Majesty and Joy
Invest thee with such glory as he wears
Who sits in the centre of the spherèd sun!
THE ACADEMIC'S ADDRESS TO TRUTH.
1
O thou condemned to dwell
Sole in thy sunless well,
Thy faint eyes fixed upon the noontide stars:
O instinct-taught to cower
Within thy watery bower
Seared by the shadow of thy worshippers!
2
The Muses dance around thee:
With flowers the Gods have crowned thee:
Thy gems make rich the Earth from shore to shore.
But yet no hand divine
Hath ever closed on thine:
And we must pity one whom we adore.
3
No eye can e'er behold thee;
No arms shall e'er enfold thee:
No kiss shall ever move thy lips apart:
Lone, lovely being, fated,
Beloved, and yet unmated,
To press a cold hand on an unshared heart!
4
Pure Naiad, far too pure
To brook thy sorrow's cure,
That would'st to any give what none may bear!
Take thou—but grant in turn
One wild-flower by thine urn
Refreshed—this crown that wreathes thy Poet's hair.
AN EPICUREAN'S EPITAPH.
When from my lips the last faint sigh is blown
By Death, dark waver of Lethean plumes,
O! press not then with monumental stone
This forehead smooth nor weigh me down with glooms
From green bowers, grey with dew,
Of Rosemary and Rue.
Choose for my bed some bath of sculptured marble
Wreathed with gay nymphs; and lay me—not alone—
Where sunbeams fall, flowers wave, and light birds warble
To those who loved me murmuring in soft tone,
“Here lies our friend, from pain secure and cold;
And spreads his limbs in peace under the sun-warmed mould!”
WISDOM.
Thou hast no mitre, crown, or sword, or helm;
Temple, high place, or academic grove,
Or garden of delights, or wrangling mart.
An outcast child wert thou, but never nursed
By spotted pard. Thee mighty Nature fed
With hues and shapes of beauty; slanting showers
Perplexed thine infant eyes with their warm drops;
Tall trees thy slumbers charmed, and birds let fall
Sharp shades upon thy lids; but most of all
Serenity came to thee from the stars,
And echoing torrents harmonized thy voice.
Such was thy nurture. Then Experience stern
Added severer lessons. Toils heroic,
Manifold labours, conflict long and strange,
In darkness; Danger, Doubt, Adversity,
Yielded large increase to thy growing thoughts;
These, not the schools; a watchful eye, an ear
Open to that great voice whose clear behests
Stamp upon dutiful hearts, in humble forms,
Those great Ideas man was born to learn—
These, and thine own right hand, taught thee that lore
Terrible to the fools.
O eloquent Greece!
Here didst thou fail. In that great balance weighed
Whose equal scales are Virtue and true Wisdom.
Thou wert found wanting. Therefore all thine Arts
Were but as flowers that crown a victim's brow.
THE ANTIGONE OF SOPHOCLES.
I saw the Poet standing by himself
At old Colonos (now, alas! no more
With dewy laurels fenced, or lit by streams
That gush o'er beds of crocus; lulled no longer
By that dark choir of quick-winged nightingales
That soothed the Eumenides:) he stood in trance,
Resting his forehead 'gainst an olive stem
Round which one arm hung idly—
At last he moved; his head sank slowly back;
On his Olympian brow the invisible air
Rested serene; his eyelids slowly drooped,
Till their dark lashes met with softest touch:
At last a rapture swelled his breast, and rising
Increased upon his face.
As one that inland stands on high-arched downs
Pierced by sea-caves, and wondering hears the sea
Working beneath—half hears it and half feels,
So looked he for a moment; then arose
Bright as a god—around his temples wreathed
A light of sun-fed locks! silent he stood:
It was his hour of immortality!
Even at the moment of that trance he saw
A glorious vision from his own deep spirit
Emerged—a perfect form! o'er earth's dark ball
Hanging he saw it, as the Thunderer sees
That great creative Thought, mankind's one law—
He saw; and cried aloud—Antigone!
THE NIGHTINGALE.
1
Tired with my long day's travel
At night I laid my head
Upon the grass and gravel
Of old Cephysus' bed.
Yet Sleep her steps susurrent
Bent towards me but to fly,
Scared back o'er that slow current
By a Nightingale hard by.
2
‘Alas, thou little mourner!
Remit that song of woe;
Sad Philomela's scorner
Was slain long years ago:
'Tis now a time-worn fable:
One half was never true;
Then why for ever babble
Of woes ne'er felt by you?’
3
The little bird persisted:
Like hers my grief was vain:
As oft as e'er she listed
She poured the same sad strain.
Though none might share her weeping,
Though none was nigh to praise,
All night she ceased not, steeping
In melody the sprays.
ZOE, AN ATHENIAN CHILD.
1
Blue eyes, but of so dark a blue
That sadder souls than mine
Find nought but night beneath their dew,
Such locks as Proserpine
Around her shadowy forehead wears,
Made smoother by Elysian airs,
And lips whose song spontaneous swells
Like airs from Ocean's moonlit shells—
These, lovely child! are thine;
And that forlorn yet radiant grace
That best becomes thy name and race!
2
A forehead orbed into the light;
Pure temples marbled round
By feathery veins that streak the white,
More white thus dimly wound,
And taper fingers, hands self-folded,
Like shapes of alabaster moulded,
And cheek whose blushes are as those
Aurora cools on Pindan snows
Ere night is yet discrowned—
Not brighter, clad in Fancy's hues,
Or seen in dream—an Infant Muse!
3
O fetch her from yon Naxian glade
One chaplet of the Bacchic vine
Or glimmering ivy-wreath yet sprayed
With dews that taste like wine!
She loves to pace the wild sea shore—
O drop her wandering fingers o'er
The bosom of some chorded shell:
Her touch will make it speak as well
As infant Hermes made
That tortoise, in its own despite
Thenceforth in Heaven a shape star-bright!
