The Poetry of Landor by Walter Savage Landor

First published:Poems, 1795; Gebir, 1798; The Hellenics, 1847; Poemata et Inscriptiones, 1847; Italics, 1848; Last Fruit off an Old Tree, 1853; Antony and Octavius, 1856; Dry Sticks Fagoted by W. S. Landor, 1858; Heroic Idylls, 1863

Critical Evaluation:

Walter Savage Landor, who has been described as a classic writer in a romantic age, was an isolated figure who outlived by many years the period of the Romantic triumph in England. Possessing from his earliest youth a strong attachment to both the ideals and the styles of Greek and Latin literature, he nevertheless admired and sympathized with the artistry of Byron, Shelley, and Keats. On the whole, however, the more restrained manner of his own poetry tended toward the temper best exemplified by Browning and Tennyson. Often he composed first in Latin and then translated his work into English, consciously preserving the classical qualities of the original.

Having studied at Rugby, Landor matriculated at Oxford in 1795, when the tide of republicanism and revolutionism was running high. His active sympathy with the ascendant ideals of liberty brought him into difficulties with the university officials and eventually led to his withdrawing from Oxford without a degree. But the excellent training in Latin which he received there was to leave a distinctive mark on all his writings. Unmistakably and pervasively it is evident in the noble restraint and chastened expression which give Landor’s poems a typically classical touch.

At the same time, with the Romantics, he was a worshiper of nature and an unflinching defender of the downtrodden and helpless. In actuality, there is in the man, as in his poetry and prose, not a diametric clash of classical and Romantic contraries but, rather, a mingling of these opposing tendencies. Landor declared sincerely that he was not seeking wide popularity as a poet. To explain this attitude he used the effective metaphor, “I shall dine late, but the dining room will be well-lighted, the guests few and select.” Although their mutual influence seems not to have been great, he appreciated, and was appreciated by, such notable contemporaries as Carlyle, Dickens, Browning, and Wordsworth.

In his first volume of poetry, POEMS, which appeared in 1795, Landor displayed considerable dignity of phrase and artistry of style. Yet this volume appears-inconsequential when compared to GEBIR, an Oriental tale in blank verse written during two solitary years in Wales and published in 1798. In its seven books this epic recounts the adventures of the mythic founder of Gibraltar. The elevated style and cadence of the poem suggest that Landor’s models were Milton and classical authors such as Pindar. GEBIR drew attention and admiration from a number of Landor’s discriminating contemporaries, but was too weak in characterization and narrative content to appeal to the general reader. The one passage of the poem which has achieved lasting recognition is the episode of “Tamar’s Wrestling,” in which the outclassed shepherd loses to the “nymph divine” both the wrestling match and the sheep he has wagered.

“Shepherd,” said she, “and will youwrestle now.And with the sailor’s hardier race en-gage?”“Whether a shepherd, as indeed youseem,Or whether of the hardier race youboast,I am not daunted, no: I will engage.”Now she came forward, eager to en-gage;But, first her dress, her bosom then,survey’d,And heav’d it, doubting if she coulddeceive.Her bosom seem’d, inclos’d in haze likeheav’n,To baffle touch; and rose forth unde-fined.Above her knees she drew the robe suc-cinct,Above her breast, and just below herarms:“This will preserve my breath, whentightly bound,If struggle and equal strength shouldso constrain.”Thus, pulling hard to fasten it, shespoke,And rushing at me, closed. I thrill’dthroughoutAnd seem’d to lessen and shrink upwith cold.Again, with violent impulse gushed myblood;And hearing nought external, thus ab-sorb’d,I heard it rushing through each turbidvein,Shake my unsteady swimming sight inair.Yet with unyielding though uncertainarms,I clung around her neck; the vest be-neathRustled against our slippery limbs en-twined:Often mine, springing with eludedforce,Started aside, and trembled, till re-placed.And when I most succeeded, as Ithought,My bosom and my throat felt so com-prestThat life was almost quivering on mylips,Yet nothing was there painful! theseare signsOf secret arts, and not human might,What arts I cannot tell: I only knowMy eyes grew dizzy, and my strengthdecay’d,I was indeed o’ercome!—with what re-gret,And more, with what confusion, whenI reachedThe fold, and yielding up the sheep,she cried,“This pays a shepherd to a conqueringmaid.”She smil’d, and more of pleasure thandisdainWas in her dimpled chin, and liberallip,And eyes that languished, lengthening,—just like love.She went away. . . .

The uneven quality of GEBIR has been best described by Coleridge, who referred to its beautiful passages as “eminences excessively bright and all the ground around and between them in darkness.” Indeed, Landor’s longer poems, generally, are best remembered in extract. “I must read again Landor’s JULIAN,” Charles Lamb wrote in 1815, “I have not read it for some time. I think he must have failed in Roderick, for I remember nothing of him, nor of any distinct character as a character—only fine-sounding passages.”

Landor devoted the first twenty-six years of his literary career almost wholly to verse. He then turned for a time primarily to the writing of prose, of which his IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS and the creative romance PERICLES AND ASPASIA are the most noteworthy. Then followed the period of Landor’s Latin poetry, during which he produced Latin verse of all kinds—elegiac, idyllic, lyric, and satiric—directly as well as indirectly imitating various Roman writers, among them Catullus, Horace, Juvenal, and Vergil. In 1847 he published these poems under the title of POEMATA ET INSCRIPTIONES; and that year he also published in English THE HELLENICS, a series of poems on Greek topics, many of which had been written long before. A second version appeared twelve years later.

THE HELLENICS contains imaginary dialogues of moderate length in poetic form. A number of them having been written, like parts of GEBIR, first in Latin, these poems are very much like their classical models. The settings and situations generally are dramatic; the characters are harmoniously arranged to set off their distinctive qualities, and the entire design is carefully proportioned. Although the products of this craftsmanship frequently resemble sedate, cool sculpture rather than intense drama, they are not devoid of an inner life of human emotion. Two poems in the collection which especially demonstrate the latter quality are the tragic “Iphigeneia” and the idyllic “Hamadryad.”

In the former poem, Iphigeneia, daughter of Agamemnon, is to be sacrificed to the gods so that her father’s ships will have a safe and prosperous journey.

Iphigeneia, when she heard her doomAt Aulis, and when all beside the kingHad gone away, took his right-hand,and said,“O father! I am young and very happy.I do not think the pious Calchas heardDistinctly what the Goddess spake. OldageObscures the senses. . . .”The father placed his cheek upon herhead,And tears dropt down it, but the kingof menReplied not. . . .“But father! to see you no more, andseeYour love, O father! go ere I am gone!”Gently he moved her off, and drew herback,Bending his loftly head far over her’s,And the dark depths of nature heavedand burst.He turn’d away; not far, but silentstill. . . .An aged man now enter’d, and withoutOne word, stept slowly on, and tookthe wristOf the pale maiden. She lookt up, andsawThe fillet of the priest and calm coldeyes.Then turn’d she where her parentstood, and cried“O father! grieve no more: the shipscan sail.”

Aside from GEBIR, THE HELLENICS, and several “closet” dramas, the most nearly successful of which is COUNT JULIAN, almost all of Landor’s poetry was in the form of occasional lyrics. Easily and regularly over a period of more than fifty years, he produced short poems, among which are his best poetic creations. There are several hundred of these occasional verses, forming a record of cheerfulness, gallantry, and affection, as well as of sad retrospect. Some of them, notably “Rose Aylmer,” have achieved lasting success. Perhaps the best and most genuinely felt words in all of Landor’s poetry are these eight lines of ROSE AYLMER:

Ah what avails the sceptred race,Ah what the form divine!What every virtue, every grace!Rose Aylmer, all were thine.Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyesMay weep, but never see,A night of memories and of sighsI consecrate to thee.

Other lyrics possess qualities which range from engaging charm to playful triviality and roguish trifling. The verses Landor wrote in old age are majestic in their own way. Of these, “I Strove with None” is the most famous, and it is typical in the author’s proclaiming his apartness of temper. His announcement, “I hate the crowd,” is like Ben Jonson’s pose which could not entirely hide the genuine feeling underneath. Seldom successful in spontaneous poetry, and sometimes far wide of the mark, Landor yet displays sensitiveness, mastery of the exquisitely beautiful phrase, exceptional proliferation of imagery, and graceful, though fastidious, dignity.

Landor declared: “Poetry was always my amusement, prose my study and business.” Although his literary reputation is based mostly on his prose, it is in poetry that he has achieved his few works of genuine greatness. During the last decades of his life, although his disposition grew increasingly aloof, he continued to produce poetry of high quality. The volume titled LAST FRUIT OFF AN OLD TREE is notable mainly for a group of five dramatic scenes on the trial and death of Beatrice Cenci, the heroine of Shelley’s poetic drama THE CENCI. ANTONY AND OCTAVIUS, a group of twelve dramatic dialogues, appeared in 1856. In 1858 he published a miscellany of poetry entitled DRY STICKS FAGOTED BY W. S. LANDOR. His final volume was the HEROIC IDYLLS.

Landor’s own proud, resonant voice was heard over an amazing span of years; and although we readily acknowledge the truth of Swinburne’s epitaph,

And through the trumpet of a child ofRomeRang the pure music of the flutes ofGreece,

we must immediately qualify it by the recollection that throughout Landor’s creative life, his classically based verse idylls such as the beautiful “Hamadryad” and its sequel “Acon and Rhodope” are in essence not only Landorian but also “Romantic” and modern. Landor’s works are products of the age of Keats and the age of Tennyson.