"But, Mr. Landor—"
"Now don't say a word. I am an old man, and if both my legs are not in the grave, they ought to be. I cannot lay up such treasures in heaven, you know,—saving of course in my memory,—and De Vere had rather you should have it than the rats. There's a compliment for you! so put the book in your pocket."
This little volume is marked throughout by Landor with notes of admiration, and if I here transcribe a few of his favorite poems, it will be with the hope of benefiting many readers to whom De Vere is a sealed book.
"Greece never produced anything so exquisite," wrote Landor beneath the following song:—
"Give me back my heart, fair child;
To you as yet 't is worth but little.
Half beguiler, half beguiled,
Be you warned: your own is brittle.
I know it by your redd'ning cheeks,—
I know it by those two black streaks
Arching up your pearly brows
In a momentary laughter,
Stretched in long and dark repose
With a sigh the moment after.
"'Hid it! dropt it on the moors!
Lost it, and you cannot find it,'—
My own heart I want, not yours:
You have bound and must unbind it.
Set it free then from your net,
We will love, sweet,—but not yet!
Fling it from you:—we are strong;
Love is trouble, love is folly:
Love, that makes an old heart young,
Makes a young heart melancholy."
And for this Landor claimed that it was "finer than the best in Horace":—
"Slanting both hands against her forehead,
On me she levelled her bright eyes.
My whole heart brightened as the sea
When midnight clouds part suddenly:—
Through all my spirit went the lustre,
Like starlight poured through purple skies.
"And then she sang a loud, sweet music;
Yet louder as aloft it clomb:
Soft when her curving lips it left;
Then rising till the heavens were cleft,
As though each strain, on high expanding,
Were echoed in a silver dome.
"But hark! she sings 'she does not love me':
She loves to say she ne'er can love.
To me her beauty she denies,—
Bending the while on me those eyes,
Whose beams might charm the mountain leopard,
Or lure Jove's herald from above!"