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Home  »  The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse  »  Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Ianthe

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

IANTHE! you are call’d to cross the sea!

A path forbidden me!

Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds

Upon the mountain-heads,

How often we have watch’d him laying down

His brow, and dropt our own

Against each other’s, and how faint and short

And sliding the support!

What will succeed it now? Mine is unblest,

Ianthe! nor will rest

But on the very thought that swells with pain.

O bid me hope again!

O give me back what Earth, what (without you)

Not Heaven itself can do—

One of the golden days that we have past;

And let it be my last!

Or else the gift would be, however sweet,

Fragile and incomplete.