Ha! com'st thou now so late to mock
A wanderer's banished heart forlorn,
Now that his frame the lightning shock
Of sun-rays tipt with death has borne?
From love, from friendship, country, torn,
To memory's fond regrets the prey;
Vile slave, thy yellow dross I scorn!
Go mix thee with thy kindred clay !

LANDOR.

TO JOSEPH ABLETT.

To the text of this ode, as invaluable poetically and autobiographically, I have restored, from Forster's "Life," the discarded MS. couplet referring to Coleridge. I do not know by what splenetic caprice Landor omitted to print it.

dells,

LORD of the Celtisches as his minstrel tells

Of Arthur or Pendragon, or perchance
The plumes of flashy France,

Or, in dark region, far across the main,
Far as Granada in the world of Spain,

Warriors untold to Saxon ear,
Until their steel-clad spirits reappear;

How happy were the hours that held

Thy friend (long absent from his native home)
Amid thy scenes with thee! how wide afield
From all past cares and all to come!

What hath Ambition's feverish grasp, what hath
Inconstant Fortune, panting Hope;

What Genius, that should cope

With the heart-whispers in that path Winding so idly, where the idler stream

Flings at the white-haired poplars gleam for gleam ?

Ablett, of all the days

My sixty summers ever knew,

Pleasant as there have been no few,

Memory not one surveys

Like those we spent together. Wisely spent
Are they alone that leave the soul content.

Together we have visited the men

Whom Pictish pirates vainly would have drown'd; Ah! shall we ever clasp the hand again

That gave the British harp its truest sound? Coleridge hath heard the call, and bathes in bliss

Among the spirits that have power like his ;

Live Derwent's guest! and thou by Grasmere springs ! Serene creators of immortal things.

And live thou too for happier days
Whom Dryden's force and Spenser's fays

Have heart and soul possessed;

Growl in grim London he who will,

Revisit thou Maiano's hill

And swell with pride his sunburnt breast.

Old Redi in his easy chair

With varied chant awaits thee there,
And here are voices in the grove
Aside my house, that make me think
Bacchus is coming down to drink
To Ariadne's love.

But whither am I borne away
From thee, to whom began my lay?

Courage! I am not yet quite lost;
I stept aside to greet my friends;
Believe me soon the greeting ends

I know but three or four at most.

Deem not that Time hath borne too hard
Upon the fortunes of thy bard,

Leaving me only three or four :
'Tis my old number; dost thou start
A tsuch a tale? In what man's heart
Is there fireside for more?

I never courted friends or Fame;

She pouted at me long, at last she came,

And threw her arms around my neck and said, "Take what hath been for years delayed,

And fear not that the leaves will fall

One hour the earlier from thy coronal."

Ablett! thou knowest with what even hand

I waved away the offer'd seat

Among the clambering, clattering, stilted great, The rulers of our land;

Nor crowds nor kings can lift me up,

Nor sweeten Pleasure's purer cup.

Thou knowest how, and why, are dear to me
My citron groves of Fiesole,

My chirping Affrico, my beechwood nook,
My Naiads, with feet only in the brook,
Which runs away and giggles in their faces,
Yet there they sit, nor sigh for other places.

'Tis not Pelasgian wall

By him made sacred whom alone 'Twere not profane to call

The bard divine, nor (thrown

Far under me) Valdarno, nor the crest
Of Valombrosa in the crimson east.

Here can I sit or roam at will; Few trouble me, few wish me ill, Few come across me, few too near ;

Here all my wishes make their stand,

Here ask I no one's voice or hand

Scornful of favour, ignorant of fear.