Posthumous Poems/Landor at Florence
LANDOR AT FLORENCE
The stateliest singing mouth that speaks our tongue,
The lordliest, and the brow of loftiest leaf
Worn after the great fashion close and brief,
Sounds and shines yet; to whom all braids belong
Of plaited laurel that no weathers wrong,
All increase of the spring and of the sheaf,
All high delight and godliness of grief,
All bloom and fume of summer and of song.
The years are of his household; Fate and Fame
Observe him; and the things of pestilence
Die out of fear, that could not die of shame,
Before his heel he set on their offence:
Time's hand shall hoard the gold of such a name
When death has blown the dust of base men thence.
1864.
The lordliest, and the brow of loftiest leaf
Worn after the great fashion close and brief,
Sounds and shines yet; to whom all braids belong
Of plaited laurel that no weathers wrong,
All increase of the spring and of the sheaf,
All high delight and godliness of grief,
All bloom and fume of summer and of song.
The years are of his household; Fate and Fame
Observe him; and the things of pestilence
Die out of fear, that could not die of shame,
Before his heel he set on their offence:
Time's hand shall hoard the gold of such a name
When death has blown the dust of base men thence.
1864.