Tanagra! think not I forget <br />Thy beautifully-storey’d streets; <br />Be sure my memory bathes yet <br />In clear Thermodon, and yet greets <br />The blythe and liberal shepherd boy, <br />Whose sunny bosom swells with joy <br />When we accept his matted rushes <br />Upheaved with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes. <br /> <br />I promise to bring back with me <br />What thou with transport wilt receive, <br />The only proper gift for thee, <br />Of which no mortal shall bereave <br />In later times thy mouldering walls, <br />Until the last old turret falls; <br />A crown, a crown from Athens won! <br />A crown no god can wear, beside Latona’s son. <br /> <br />There may be cities who refuse <br />To their own child the honours due, <br />And look ungently on the Muse; <br />But ever shall those cities rue <br />The dry, unyielding, niggard breast, <br />Offering no nourishment, no rest, <br />To that young head which soon shall rise <br />Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies. <br /> <br />Sweetly where cavern’d Dirce flows <br />Do white-arm’d maidens chaunt my lay, <br />Flapping the while with laurel-rose <br />The honey-gathering tribes away; <br />And sweetly, sweetly, Attick tongues <br />Lisp your Corinna’s early songs; <br />To her with feet more graceful come <br />The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home. <br /> <br />O let thy children lean aslant <br />Against the tender mother’s knee, <br />And gaze into her face, and want <br />To know what magic there can be <br />In words that urge some eyes to dance, <br />While others as in holy trance <br />Look up to heaven; be such my praise! <br />Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphick bays.<br /><br />Walter Savage Landor<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/corinna-from-athens-to-tanagra/
