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

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

‘Why, why repine’

WHY, why repine, my pensive friend,

At pleasures slipt away?

Some the stern Fates will never lend,

And all refuse to stay.

I see the rainbow in the sky,

The dew upon the grass;

I see them, and I ask not why

They glimmer or they pass.

With folded arms I linger not

To call them back—’twere vain:

In this, or in some other spot

I know they’ll shine again.