Walter Savage Landor

and we are living at a time experiencing the catastrophe and heartbreak of monumental environmental collapse.

For, to paraphrase the words of Lin Yutang on Walter Savage Landor, we are living in a time when small men cast very long shadows across the world, because our sun is low and about to set.

And ours is a generation

who are the witnesses of the great unravelling.

THE HUNDRED BEST ENGLISH POEMS BY VARIOUS AUTHORS PREFATORY NOTE let me frankly admit to begin with that the attractiveness and probable selling qualities of the title of this little book the hundred best english poems proved when it had been once thought of too powerful arguments for it to be abandoned i am fully conscious of the presumption such a title implies in an unknown selector but at the same time i submit that only a plebiscite of duly qualified lovers of poetry could make a selection that could claim to deserve this title beyond all question and such a plebiscite is of course impossible i can claim no more than that my attempt to realize this title is an honest one and i can assert without fear of contradiction that every one of the poems i have included is a gem of purest ray serene that none can be too often read or too often repeated to one's self that every one of them should be known by heart by every lover of good literature so that each may become as it were a part of his inner being i have not inserted any poems by living authors i have taken the greatest care with the texts of the poems the editions followed have been mentioned in every case i have scrupulously retained the punctuation of these original editions and only modernized the spelling of the old copies while i have not ventured to omit any part of any poem i have not supplied titles of my own but have adopted those i found already employed in the editions used as models or in some of the cases in which i found none have merely added a descriptive one such as song from don juan in conclusion my very warmest thanks are due to messrs macmillan co ltd for permission to include tennyson's crossing the bar to mr d nutt for permission to insert w e henley's to r th b and margarita to messrs smith elder co for a like privilege in regard to browning's epilogue and to mr lloyd osborne and messrs chatto windus for permission to reproduce stevenson's requiem without these poems the volume would have had a much smaller claim to its title than it does possess slight as that may be My thanks are also due to the following gentlemen who have kindly allowed me to reproduce copyright texts of non-copyright poems from editions published by them.

Messrs. Bickers and Son, Ben Johnson, Messrs. Chapman and Hall, Ltd., Landor, Messrs. Chatto and Windus, Herrick, Mr. Buxton Foreman, Keats and Shelley, Mr. Henry Froud, Wordsworth, Mr. Alex Gardner and the Reverend George Henderson, B.D., Lady Nairn, Messrs. T.C. and E.C. Jack, Burns, Messrs. Macmillan and Company, Limited, Clough and Tennyson, Mr. John Murray, Byron, Messrs. Smith Elder and Company, Browning, Messrs.

Ward Locke and Company, Limited, Coleridge and Hood.

Adam L. Gowans End of prefatory note.

when i have fears that i may cease to be before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain before high-piled books in charactery hold like rich garners the full ripened grain when i behold upon the night's starred face huge cloudy symbols of a high romance and think that i may never live to trace their shadows with the magic hand of chance and when i feel fair creature of an hour that i shall never look upon thee more never have relish in the fairy power of unreflecting love then on the shore of the wide world i stand alone and think till love and fame to nothingness do sink the old familiar faces where are they gone the old familiar faces i had a mother but she died and left me died prematurely in a day of horrors all all are gone the old familiar faces i have had playmates i have had companions in my days of childhood in my joyful school days all all are gone the old familiar faces i have been laughing i have been carousing drinking late sitting late with my bosom cronies all all are gone the old familiar faces i loved a love once fairest among women closed are her doors on me i must not see her all all are gone the old familiar faces i have a friend a kinder friend has no man like an ingrate i left my friend abruptly left him to muse on the old familiar faces ghost-like i paced round the haunts of my childhood earth seemed a desert i was bound to traverse seeking to find the old familiar faces friend of my bosom thou more than a brother why were not thou born in my father's dwelling so might we talk of the old familiar faces for some they have died and some they have left me and some are taken from me all are departed all all are gone the old familiar faces.

The

Maid's Lament by Walter Savage Landor

i loved him not and yet now he is gone i feel i am alone i checked him while he spoke yet could he speak alas i would not check for reasons not to love him once i sought and wearied all my thought to vex myself and him i now would give my love could he but live who lately lived for me and when he found twas vain in holy ground he hid his face amid the shades of death i waste for him my breath who wasted his for me but mine returns and this lorn bosom burns with stifling heat heaving it up in sleep and waking me to weep tears that had melted his soft heart for years wept he as bitter tears merciful god such was his latest prayer these may she never share quieter is his breath his breast more cold than daisies in the mould where children spell athwart the churchyard gate his name and life's brief date Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be, And, oh, pray too for me.

This recording is in the public domain.

The Maid's Lament by Walter Savage Landor, read for LibriVox.org.

I loved him not, and yet now he is gone, I feel I am alone.

I checked him while he spoke, yet could he speak, alas! I would not check.