Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864)

‘Ye who have toiled uphill’

YE who have toiled uphill to reach the haunt

Of other men who lived in other days,

Whether the ruins of a citadel

Raised on the summit by Pelasgic hands,

Or chamber of the distaff and the song…..

Ye will not tell what treasure there ye found,

But I will.
Ye found there the viper laid

Full-length, flat-headed, on a sunny slab,

Nor loth to hiss at ye while crawling down.

Ye saw the owl flap the loose ivy leaves

And, hooting, shake the berries on your heads.

Now, was it worth your while to mount so high?

Merely to say ye did it, and to ask

If those about ye ever did the like?

Believe me, O my friends, ’twere better far

To stretch your limbs along the level sand

As they do, where small children scoop the drift,

Thinking it must be gold, where curlews soar

And scales drop glistening from the prey above.