Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (18331908). A Victorian Anthology, 18371895. 1895. |
|
In Memory of Walter Savage Landor |
| Algernon Charles Swinburne (18371909) |
|
|
BACK to the flower-town, side by side, | |
The bright months bring, | |
New-born, the bridegroom and the bride, | |
Freedom and spring. | |
|
The sweet land laughs from sea to sea, | 5 |
Filld full of sun; | |
All things come back to her, being free; | |
All things but one. | |
|
In many a tender wheaten plot | |
Flowers that were dead | 10 |
Live, and old suns revive; but not | |
That holier head. | |
|
By this white wandering waste of sea, | |
Far north, I hear | |
One face shall never turn to me | 15 |
As once this year: | |
|
Shall never smile and turn and rest | |
On mine as there, | |
Nor one most sacred hand be prest | |
Upon my hair. | 20 |
|
I came as one whose thoughts half linger, | |
Half run before; | |
The youngest to the oldest singer | |
That England bore. | |
|
I found him whom I shall not find | 25 |
Till all grief end, | |
In holiest age our mightiest mind, | |
Father and friend. | |
|
But thou, if anything endure, | |
If hope there be, | 30 |
O spirit that mans life left pure, | |
Mans death set free, | |
|
Not with disdain of days that were | |
Look earthward now | |
Let dreams revive the reverend hair, | 35 |
The imperial brow; | |
|
Come back in sleep, for in the life | |
Where thou art not | |
We find none like thee. Time and strife | |
And the worlds lot | 40 |
|
Move thee no more; but love at least | |
And reverent heart | |
May move thee, royal and releast, | |
Soul, as thou art. | |
|
And thou, his Florence, to thy trust | 45 |
Receive and keep, | |
Keep safe his dedicated dust, | |
His sacred sleep. | |
|
So shall thy lovers, come from far, | |
Mix with thy name | 50 |
As morning-star with evening-star | |
His faultless fame. | |
|
|
|
|