Read Walter Savage Landor biography
Absence and death are the same only that in death there is no suffering.
Walter Savage LandorPoor shell! that Wordsworth so pounded and flattened in his marsh it no longer had the hoarseness of a sea, but of a hospital.
Walter Savage LandorAh, what avails the sceptred race! Ah, what the form divine!
Walter Savage LandorClear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.
Walter Savage LandorFleas know not whether they are upon the body of a giant or upon one of ordinary size.
Walter Savage LandorPast ruined Ilion Helen lives, Alcestis rises from the shades; Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives Immortal youth to mortal maids.
Walter Savage LandorThere are no fields of amaranth on this side of the grave.
Walter Savage LandorDeath stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear; Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.
Walter Savage LandorI strove with none; for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art.
Walter Savage LandorProse on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry: on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.
Walter Savage LandorBut I have sinuous shells of pearly hue...Shake one, and it awakens; then applyIts polished lips to your attentive ear,And it remembers its august abodes,And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
Walter Savage LandorAh what avails the sceptered race,Ah what the form divine!
Walter Savage LandorRose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyesMay weep, but never see,A night of memories and of sighsI consecrate to thee.
Walter Savage Landor'Tis verse that givesImmortal youth to mortal maids.
Walter Savage LandorShakespeare 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 walked along our roads with stepSo active, so inquiring eye, or tongueSo varied in discourse.
Walter Savage LandorThe Siren waits thee, singing song for song.
Walter Savage LandorI 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.
Walter Savage LandorAround the child bend all the threeSweet Graces: Faith, Hope, Charity.Around the man bend other faces;Pride, Envy, Malice, are his Graces.
Walter Savage LandorThe damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall; and thus insensibly are we, as years close around us, detached from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrow.
Walter Savage LandorI am heartily glad to witness your veneration for a Book which to say nothing of its holiness or authority, contains more specimens of genius and taste than any other volume in existence.
Walter Savage LandorWearers of rings and chains!Pray do not take the painsTo set me right.In vain my faults ye quote;I write as others wroteOn Sunium’s hight.
Walter Savage LandorStand close around, ye Stygian set,with Dirce in the boat conveyed,Lest Charon, seeing her, forget,That he is old and she a shade.
Walter Savage LandorMen, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend: such nails are then thrown into the dust or into the furnace.
Walter Savage LandorAmbition is but Avarice on stilts and masked.
Walter Savage LandorAmbition is but Avarice on stilts and masked.
Walter Savage LandorBut I have sinuous shells of pearly hue Within, and they that lustre have imbibed In the sun’s palace-porch, where when unyoked chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave: Shake one, and it awakens; then apply Its polisht lips to your attentive ear, And it remembers its august abodes, And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
Walter Savage LandorHave heard her sigh and soften out the name.
Walter Savage LandorWe are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.
Walter Savage Landor