DEDICATION.

To Mrs. Lynn Linton.

Daughter in spirit elect and consecrate
  By love and reverence of the Olympian sire
Whom I too loved and worshipped, seeing so great,
  And found so gracious toward my long desire
To bid that love in song before his gate
  Sound, and my lute be loyal to his lyre,
To none save one it now may dedicate
  Song’s new burnt-offering on a century’s pyre. 
      And though the gift be light
      As ashes in men’s sight,
  Left by the flame of no ethereal fire,
      Yet, for his worthier sake
      Than words are worthless, take
  This wreath of words ere yet their hour expire: 
    So, haply, from some heaven above,
He, seeing, may set next yours my sacrifice of love.

May 24, 1880.

SONG FOR THE CENTENARY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

1.

Five years beyond an hundred years have seen
  Their winters, white as faith’s and age’s hue,
Melt, smiling through brief tears that broke between,
  And hope’s young conquering colours reared anew,
Since, on the day whose edge for kings made keen
  Smote sharper once than ever storm-wind blew,
A head predestined for the girdling green
  That laughs at lightning all the seasons through,
      Nor frost or change can sunder
      Its crown untouched of thunder
Leaf from least leaf of all its leaves that grew
      Alone for brows too bold
      For storm to sear of old,
  Elect to shine in time’s eternal view,
    Rose on the verge of radiant life
Between the winds and sunbeams mingling love with strife.

2.

The darkling day that gave its bloodred birth
  To Milton’s white republic undefiled
That might endure so few fleet years on earth
  Bore in him likewise as divine a child;
But born not less for crowns of love and mirth,
  Of palm and myrtle passionate and mild,
The leaf that girds about with gentler girth
  The brow steel-bound in battle, and the wild
Soft spray that flowers above
      The flower-soft hair of love;
  And the white lips of wayworn winter smiled
      And grew serene as spring’s
      When with stretched clouds like wings
  Or wings like drift of snow-clouds massed and piled
    The godlike giant, softening, spread
A shadow of stormy shelter round the new-born head.

3.

And o’er it brightening bowed the wild-haired hour,
  And touched his tongue with honey and with fire,
And breathed between his lips the note of power
  That makes of all the winds of heaven a lyre
Whose strings are stretched from topmost peaks that tower
To softest springs of waters that suspire,
With sounds too dim to shake the lowliest flower
  Breathless with hope and dauntless with desire: