Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO JOHN FORSTER, by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO JOHN FORSTER, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Forster! Whose zeal hath seiz'd each written page
Last Line: Gushes redundantly her golden hair.
Subject(s): Forster, John (1812-1876); History; Historians


Forster! whose zeal hath seiz'd each written page
That fell from me, and over many lands
Hath clear'd for me a broad and solid way,
Whence one more age, aye, haply more than one,
May be arrived at (all through thee), accept
No false or faint or perishable thanks.
From better men, and greater, friendship turn'd
Thy willing steps to me. From Eliot's cell
Death-dark, from Hampden's sadder battle-field,
From steadfast Cromwell's tribunitian throne,
Loftier than kings' supported knees could mount,
Hast thou departed with me, and hast climbed
Cecropian highths, and ploughed AEgean waves.
Therefore it never grieved me when I saw
That she who guards those regions and those seas
Hath lookt with eyes more gracious upon thee.
There are no few like that conspirator
Who, under pretext of power-worship, fell
At Caesar's feet, only to hold him down
While others stabb'd him with repeated blows:
And there are more who fling light jibes, immerst
In gutter-filth, against the car that mounts
Weighty with triumph up the Sacred Way.
Protect in every place my stranger guests,
Born in the lucid land of free pure song,
Now first appearing on repulsive shores,
Bleak, and where safely none but natives move,
Red-poll'd, red-handed, siller-grasping men.
Ah! lead them far away, for they are used
To genial climes and gentle speech; but most
Cymodameia: warn the Tritons off
While she ascends, while through the opening plain
Of the green sea (brighten'd by bearing it)
Gushes redundantly her golden hair.





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