Studies in Song | Page 2

161
SONG FOR THE CENTENARY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
BORN JANUARY 30TH, 1775
DIED SEPTEMBER 17TH, 1864
There is delight in singing, though none hear?Beside the singer: and there is delight?In praising, though the praiser sit alone?And see the praised far off him, far above.
LANDOR.
DEDICATION.
TO MRS. LYNN LINTON.
_Daughter in spirit elect and consecrate?By love and reverence of the Olympian sire?Whom I too loved and worshipped, seeing so great,?And found so gracious toward my long desire?To bid that love in song before his gate?Sound, and my lute be loyal to his lyre,?To none save one it now may dedicate?Song's new burnt-offering on a century's pyre.
And though the gift be light?As ashes in men's sight,?Left by the flame of no ethereal fire,
Yet, for his worthier sake?Than words are worthless, take?This wreath of words ere yet their hour expire:?So, haply, from some heaven above,?He, seeing, may set next yours my sacrifice of love._
May 24, 1880.
SONG FOR THE CENTENARY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
1.
Five years beyond an hundred years have seen?Their winters, white as faith's and age's hue,?Melt, smiling through brief tears that broke between,?And hope's young conquering colours reared anew,?Since, on the day whose edge for kings made keen?Smote sharper once than ever storm-wind blew,?A head predestined for the girdling green?That laughs at lightning all the seasons through,
Nor frost or change can sunder?Its crown untouched of thunder?Leaf from least leaf of all its leaves that grew
Alone for brows too bold?For storm to sear of old,?Elect to shine in time's eternal view,?Rose on the verge of radiant life?Between the winds and sunbeams mingling love with strife.
2.
The darkling day that gave its bloodred birth?To Milton's white republic undefiled?That might endure so few fleet years on earth?Bore in him likewise as divine a child;?But born not less for crowns of love and mirth,?Of palm and myrtle passionate and mild,?The leaf that girds about with gentler girth?The brow steel-bound in battle, and the wild?Soft spray that flowers above
The flower-soft hair of love;?And the white lips of wayworn winter smiled
And grew serene as spring's?When with stretched clouds like wings?Or wings like drift of snow-clouds massed and piled?The godlike giant, softening, spread?A shadow of stormy shelter round the new-born head.
3.
And o'er it brightening bowed the wild-haired hour,?And touched his tongue with honey and with fire,?And breathed between his lips the note of power?That makes of all the winds of heaven a lyre?Whose strings are stretched from topmost peaks that tower?To softest springs of waters that suspire,?With sounds too dim to shake the lowliest flower?Breathless with hope and dauntless with desire:
And bright before his face?That Hour became a Grace,?As in the light of their Athenian quire
When the Hours before the sun?And Graces were made one,?Called by sweet Love down from the aerial gyre?By one dear name of natural joy,?To bear on her bright breast from heaven a heaven-born boy.
4.
Ere light could kiss the little lids in sunder?Or love could lift them for the sun to smite,?His fiery birth-star as a sign of wonder?Had risen, perplexing the presageful night?With shadow and glory around her sphere and under?And portents prophesying by sound and sight;?And half the sound was song and half was thunder,?And half his life of lightning, half of light:
And in the soft clenched hand?Shone like a burning brand?A shadowy sword for swordless fields of fight,
Wrought only for such lord?As so may wield the sword?That all things ill be put to fear and flight?Even at the flash and sweep and gleam?Of one swift stroke beheld but in a shuddering dream.
5.
Like the sun's rays that blind the night's wild beasts?The sword of song shines as the swordsman sings;?From the west wind's verge even to the arduous east's?The splendour of the shadow that it flings?Makes fire and storm in heaven above the feasts?Of men fulfilled with food of evil things;?Strikes dumb the lying and hungering lips of priests,?Smites dead the slaying and ravening hands of kings;
Turns dark the lamp's hot light,?And turns the darkness bright?As with the shadow of dawn's reverberate wings;
And far before its way?Heaven, yearning toward the day,?Shines with its thunder and round its lightning rings;?And never hand yet earlier played?With that keen sword whose hilt is cloud, and fire its blade.
6.
As dropping flakes of honey-heavy dew?More soft than slumber's, fell the first note's sound?From strings the swift young hand strayed lightlier through Than leaves through calm air wheeling toward the ground?Stray down the drifting wind when skies are blue?Nor yet the wings of latter winds unbound,?Ere winter loosen all the ?olian crew?With storm unleashed behind them like a hound.
As lightly rose and sank?Beside a green-flowered bank?The clear first notes his burning boyhood found
To sing her sacred praise?Who rode her city's ways?Clothed with bright hair and with high purpose crowned;?A song of soft presageful breath,?Prefiguring