Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Walter Savage Landor 1775–1864

Overture

Landor-W

WHO will away to Athens with me? who

Loves choral songs and maidens crown’d with flowers,

Unenvious? mount the pinnace; hoist the sail.

I promise ye, as many as are here,

Ye shall not, while ye tarry with me, taste

From unrins’d barrel the diluted wine

Of a low vineyard or a plant ill prun’d,

But such as anciently the Ægean isles

Pour’d in libation at their solemn feasts:

And the same goblets shall ye grasp, emboss’d

With no vile figures of loose languid boors,

But such as gods have liv’d with and have led.