Above the glittering crests of giant sons
Station’d around ... in vain too! all in vain.”
Two years later the warm-hearted friend writes from Pistoia, rejoicing in Southey’s joy: “Thank God! Tears came into my eyes on seeing that you were blessed with a son.” To watch the happiness of children was Landor’s highest delight; to share in such happiness was Southey’s; and Arnold and Cuthbert formed a new bond between their fathers. In 1836, when Southey, in his sixty-third year, guided his son through the scenes of his boyhood, several delightful days were spent at Clifton with Landor. I never knew a man of brighter genius or of kinder heart, said Southey; and of Landor in earlier years:—“He does more than any of the gods of all my mythologies, for his very words are thunder and lightning—such is the power and splendour with which they burst out.” Landor responded with a majestic enthusiasm about his friend, who seemed to him no less noble a man than admirable a writer:
“No firmer breast than thine hath Heaven
To poet, sage, or hero given:
No heart more tender, none more just,
To that He largely placed in trust:
Therefore shalt thou, whatever date
Of years be thine, with soul elate
Rise up before the Eternal throne,