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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extracts from Gebir: Tamar and the Nymph

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

Extracts from Gebir: Tamar and the Nymph

[From Book VI.]

‘OH seek not destin’d evils to divine,

Found out at last too soon! cease here the search,

’Tis vain, ’tis impious, ’tis no gift of mine;

I will impart far better, will impart

What makes, when Winter comes, the Sun to rest

So soon on Ocean’s bed his paler brow,

And Night to tarry so at Spring’s return.

And I will tell sometimes the fate of men

Who loos’d from drooping neck the restless arm

Adventurous, ere long nights had satisfied

The sweet and honest avarice of love;

How whirlpools have absorb’d them, storms o’erwhelm’d,

And how amid their struggles and their prayers

The big wave blacken’d o’er the mouth supine:

Then, when my Tamar trembles at the tale,

Kissing his lips half open with surprise,

Glance from the gloomy story, and with glee

Light on the fairer fables of the Gods.

—Thus we may sport at leisure when we go

Where, loved by Neptune and the Naiad, loved

By pensive Dryad pale, and Oread

The sprightly nymph whom constant Zephyr woos,

Rhine rolls his beryl-colour’d wave; than Rhine

What river from the mountains ever came

More stately? most the simple crown adorns

Of rushes and of willows intertwined

With here and there a flower: his lofty brow

Shaded with vines and mistleto and oak

He rears, and mystic bards his fame resound.

Or gliding opposite, th’ Illyrian gulf

Will harbour us from ill.’ While thus she spake,

She toucht his eyelashes with libant lip,

And breath’d ambrosial odours, o’er his cheek

Celestial warmth suffusing: grief dispersed,

And strength and pleasure beam’d upon his brow.

Then pointed she before him: first arose

To his astonisht and delighted view

The sacred ile that shrines the queen of love.

It stood so near him, so acute each sense,

That not the symphony of lutes alone

Or coo serene or billing strife of doves,

But murmurs, whispers, nay the very sighs

Which he himself had utter’d once, he heard.

Next, but long after and far off, appear

The cloudlike cliffs and thousand towers of Crete,

And further to the right, the Cyclades:

Phoebus had rais’d and fixt them, to surround

His native Delos and aerial fane.

He saw the land of Pelops, host of Gods,

Saw the steep ridge where Corinth after stood

Beckoning the serious with the smiling Arts

Into the sunbright bay; unborn the maid

That to assure the bent-up hand unskilled

Lookt oft, but oftener fearing who might wake.

He heard the voice of rivers; he descried

Pindan Peneus and the slender nymphs

That tread his banks but fear the thundering tide;

These, and Amphrysos and Apidanus

And poplar-crown’d Spercheus, and reclined

On restless rocks Enipeus, where the winds

Scatter’d above the weeds his hoary hair.

Then, with Pirene and with Panope

Evenus, troubled from paternal tears,

And last was Achelous, king of iles.

Zacynthus here, above rose Ithaca,

Like a blue bubble floating in the bay.

Far onward to the left a glimm’ring light

Glanced out oblique, nor vanisht; he inquired

Whence that arose, his consort thus replied.

‘Behold the vast Eridanus! ere long

We may again behold him and rejoice.

Of noble rivers none with mightier force

Rolls his unwearied torrent to the main.’

And now Sicanian Etna rose to view:

Darkness with light more horrid she confounds,

Baffles the breath and dims the sight of day.

Tamar grew giddy with astonishment

And, looking up, held fast the bridal vest;

He heard the roar above him, heard the roar

Beneath, and felt it too, as he beheld,

Hurl, from Earth’s base, rocks, mountains, to the skies.