Corinna to Tanagra, from Athens

TANAGRA! think not I forget
Thy beautifully storied streets;
Be sure my memory bathes yet
In clear Thermodon, and yet greets
The blithe and liberal shepherd-boy, 5
Whose sunny bosom swells with joy
When we accept his matted rushes
Upheav’d with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes.

English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)


TANAGRA! think not I forget
Thy beautifully storied streets;
Be sure my memory bathes yet
In clear Thermodon, and yet greets
The blithe and liberal shepherd-boy, 5
Whose sunny bosom swells with joy
When we accept his matted rushes
Upheav’d with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes.

A gift I promise: one I see
Which thou with transport wilt receive, 10
The only proper gift for thee,
Of which no mortal shall bereave
In later times thy mouldering walls,
Until the last old turret falls;
A crown, a crown from Athens won, 15
A crown no God can wear, beside Latona’s son

There may be cities who refuse
To their own child the honours due,
And look ungently on the Muse;
But ever shall those cities rue 20
The dry, unyielding, niggard breast,
Offering no nourishment, no rest,
To that young head which soon shall rise
Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies.

Sweetly where cavern’d Dirce flows 25
Do white-arm’d maidens chant my lay,
Flapping the while with laurel-rose
The honey-gathering tribes away;
And sweetly, sweetly Attic tongues
Lisp your Corinna’s early songs; 30
To her with feet more graceful come
The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home.

O let thy children lean aslant
Against the tender mother’s knee,
And gaze into her face, and want 35
To know what magic there can be
In words that urge some eyes to dance,
While others as in holy trance
Look up to heaven: be such my praise!
Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphic bays. 40


Source: http://www.bartleby.com/41/548.html