Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
Ianthe! You are Call'd to Cross the Sea
1Ianthe! you are call'd to cross the sea!
2 A path forbidden me!
3Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds
4 Upon the mountain-heads,
5How often we have watcht him laying down
6 His brow, and dropt our own
7Against each other's, and how faint and short
8 And sliding the support!
9What will succeed it now? Mine is unblest,
10 Ianthe! nor will rest
11But on the very thought that swells with pain.
12 O bid me hope again!
13O give me back what Earth, what (without you)
14 Not Heaven itself can do--
15One of the golden days that we have past,
16 And let it be my last!
17Or else the gift would be, however sweet,
18 Fragile and incomplete.
Notes
1] Published in Gebir, etc., 1831, and reprinted in 1846 with two revisions which are here followed. Ianthe was probably called to cross the sea to Ireland.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Walter Savage Landor, Gebir, Count Julian (1831).
First publication date:
1831
RPO poem editor: H. Kerpneck
RP edition: 3RP 3.5.
Recent editing: 4:2002/2/21
Form: Couplets
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