5 And you, warm little housekeeper, who class With those who think the candles come too soon, Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;

Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,

10 One to the fields, the other to the hearth,

Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are

strong

At your clear hearts; and both seem giv'n to earth To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song— In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.

Walter Savage Landor

1775-1864

MILD IS THE PARTING YEAR, AND SWEET (Collected Works, 1846)

Mild is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;
Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.

5 I wait its close, I court its gloom,

But mourn that never must there fall
Or on my breast or on my tomb

The tear that would have sooth'd it all.

AH WHAT AVAILS THE SCEPTERED RACE
(From the same)

Ah what avails the sceptered race,
Ah what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!

Rose Aylmer, all were thine,

5 Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,

A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.

YES; I WRITE VERSES

(From the same)

Yes;
I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talkt of by young men
As rather clever:

5 In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size;
Is it not time then to be wise?

Or now or never.

Fairest that ever sprang from Eve! 10 While Time allows the short reprieve, Just look at me! would you believe

'Twas once a lover?

I cannot clear the five-bar gate

But, trying first its timber's state,

15 Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait

20

To trundle over.

Thro' gallopade I cannot swing

The entangling blooms of Beauty's spring:
I cannot say the tender thing,

Be't true or false,

And am beginning to opine

Those girls are only half-divine

Whose waists yon wicked boys entwine

In giddy waltz.

25 I fear that arm above that shoulder, I wish them wiser, graver, older, Sedater, and no harm if colder

And panting less.

Ah! people were not half so wild 30 In former days, when starchly mild, Upon her high-heel'd Essex smiled

The Brave Queen Bess.

TO ROBERT BROWNING

(From the same)

There is delight in singing, tho' none hear
Beside the singer; and there is delight
In praising, tho' the praiser sit alone
And see the prais'd far off him, far above.
5 Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,
Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walkt along our roads with step
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue

10 So varied in discourse. But warmer climes
Give brighter plumage, stronger wing: the breeze
Of Alpine heights thou playest with, borne on
Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where

The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.

INTRODUCTION TO

THE LAST FRUIT OFF AN OLD TREE

(1853)

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art;

I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Bryan Waller Procter

(Barry Cornwall)

1787-1874

A PETITION TO TIME

(From Poems, 1850)

Touch us gently, Time!

Let us glide adown thy stream
Gently, as we sometimes glide

Through a quiet dream!

5 Humble voyagers are We,

10

Husband, wife, and children three(One is lost, an angel, fled

To the azure overhead!)

Touch us gently, Time!

We've not proud nor soaring wings:
Our ambition, our content

Lies in simple things.
Humble voyagers are We,

O'er Life's dim unsounded sea, 15 Seeking only some calm clime:Touch us gently, gentle Time!

bartley Coleridge

1796-1849

SONG

(1851)

She is not fair to outward view
As many maidens be,
Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me;

5 Oh! then I saw her eye was bright, A well of love, a spring of light.

10

But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne'er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye:

Her very frowns are fairer far,

Than smiles of other maidens are,

Charles Lamb

1775-1834

TO HESTER

(1805)

When maidens such as Hester die,
Their place ye may not well supply,
Though ye among a thousand try,
With vain endeavour.

5 A month or more hath she been dead,
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed,
And her together.

A springy motion in her gait, 10 A rising step, did indicate

Of pride and joy no common rate,
That flushed her spirit.

I know not by what name beside
I shall it call;-if 'twas not pride,
15 It was a joy to that allied,
She did inherit.

20

Her parents held the Quaker rule,
Which doth the human feeling cool,
But she was train'd in Nature's school,
Nature had blest her.

A waking eye, a prying mind,
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind,
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.