Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ Memories that linger o'er the past,
But into softer shadow cast,
Like lovely pictures that recall
One look, but that most dear of all.
When life's more fierce desires depart,
Aware how false and vain they are,—
While youth yet lingers at the heart,
And hope, although it looks afar,—
Then takes the lute, its softest tone,
It murmurs of emotions gone.
Then charms the picture most, it brings
So many unforgotten things.
Then breathes within the gifted scroll
A deeper meaning to the soul,—
For that itself hath learnt before
The truth and secret of its lore. ”

“ Its radiance of light, thou shalt then be my shrine;
I'll listen the song which the wild dove is singing,
And catch from its sweetness a lesson for mine.
And when the red sunset at even is dying,
I'll watch the last blush as it fades on the wave;
While the wind, through the shells in its low music sighing,
Will seem like the anthem peal'd over its grave.
And when the bright stars which I worship are beaming,
And writing in beauty and fate on the sky,
Then, mine own lute, be the hour for thy dreaming,
And the night-flowers will open and echo thy sigh. ”

“ For when the young rose of her cheek grew pale,
And health was departed, she loved thy wail;
And I have heard thy murmurs sweep
O'er the flowers that smile round her last cold sleep.
And thou recallest a dark-eyed maid,
With forehead of snow and raven braid,
The light of my love-dream,—one who oft
Would answer in song to thy breathing soft;
One who could love, and her love forget—
O waken not, lute, that wild regret!
Better thou ever shouldst silent be,
Than renew such memories of sadness to me. ”

“ But where are the glad eyes it wont to awake.
Weep, weep, ’mid a bright world of beauty and bloom,
For the sweet human flower that lies low in the tomb.
And wild through the palace the death-song is breathing,
And white are the blossoms, the slaves weep while wreathing,
To strew at the feet and to bind round the head,
Of her who was numbered last night with the dead:
They braid her long tresses, they drop the shroud o’er,
And gaze on her cold and pale beauty no more:
But the heart has her image, and long after years
Will keep her sad memory with music and tears. ”

“ He saw a Girl, like spring-day fair,
Feeding with incense the sacred flame,
And he heard her hymn, and it breathed his name.
Oh, Love! a whole life is not worth this bliss—
Eglæ has met her Arion's kiss!—
They raised an altar upon the seashore,
And every spring they cover'd it o'er
With fruits of the wood and flowers of the field,
And the richest perfumes that the East could yield;
And as the waves rolled, they knelt by the side,
And poured their hymn to the Queen of the Tide. ”

“ But 'mid these scenes of wintry gloom, are some
Fair relics of the spring time blossoms, like
The sunny smiles of May, as if some breeze,
Just wander'd from delightful Italy,
Had brought the blessings of its birth-place here.
And lovely are the vallies which extend
Beneath the mountains; oh! how sweet it is
To gaze around when summer sunset sheds
Its splendor in the west; when the bright clouds,
Warm with the hues of eve, gleam o'er the sky,
As 'twere some heavenly spirit veil'd his form
In bursts of glory from a mortal eye. ”

“ That owns not to itself it loves, until that love is known,
By feeling in the wide, wide world so utterly alone.
No face seem'd pleasant to her sight, one image linger'd there,
The echo of one only voice was on the haunted air.
Speak not of other sorrow, life knoweth not such pain,
As that within the stricken heart, which loves, and loves in vain.
Yet she, too, at the altar gave up her wan cold hand,
That shudder'd as they circle it with an unwelcome band;
Ah! crime and misery both, the heart—on such a die to set,
The veriest mockery of love is striving to forget. ”

“ We dearly buy our pleasures, we repay
By some deep suffering; or they decay
Or change to pain, and curse us by their stay.
A world of ashes is beneath our feet—
Cold ashes of each beautiful deceit,
Owned by long silent hearts, that beat as ours now beat.
How can we trust our own? we waste our breath;
We heap up hope and joy in one bright wreath;—
Our altar is the grave—our priest is death.
But, ah! death is repose;—'tis not our doom,—
The cold, the calm, that haunts my soul with gloom:
I tremble at the passage to the tomb. ”

“ Hope waits on Fortune. After many years
I saw my early idol once again:
How changed, yet still how very beautiful!
Pride sat upon her brow, a reckless scorn
Mingled with bitterness in each light word,
And sorrow, ill concealed, seemed at her heart:
Yet had she wedded, and won rank and wealth,
But once we met; how deep the tenderness
That softened her so lovely countenance,
When, with a voice half music and half sorrow,
She gently said, "The seared heart doth not break." ”

“ IOLE.
'Tis a vain folly, and I know it such;
Yet who has not some weakness which the heart
Has made an idol? 'Tis thus with the name
That to my lute is as the vizard is,
Which hides the masquer's face. I have no hope,
Nay, scarce the wish, for fame; but yet it soothes,
And gives me somewhat of a social feeling,
To think that some, albeit they know me not,
May share the grief that taught me poetry.
Beloved mine! Iole has a sound
Breathing of other days, and linked with thee:
'Tis not the first time I have borne that name. ”

“ Thou shalt think of me when the stars are weeping
Their tears of light;
Thou shalt think of me when the stars are keeping
Their watch at night;
Thou shalt think of me when summer flowers
In autumn fade;
When sinks the glory of noon-tide hours
In twilight shade;
When the waves round some fragile bark are breaking
Alone at sea;
Or when from your saddest dream awaking,
Then think of me.
But I will think of thee at the dawning
Of the daylight's star,
When slowly comes forth the beauty of morning,
Like joy from afar. ”

“ That all of which my heart can only dream.
And I have mused upon my gift of song,
And deeply felt its beauty, and disdained
The pettiness of praise to which, at times,
My soul has bowed; and I have scorned myself
For that my cheek could burn, my heart could beat
At idle words. And yet, it is in vain
For the full heart to press back every pulse
Wholly upon itself. Aye, fair as are
The dreams that bless a poet's solitude:
There must be something more for happiness—
They seek communion. But, no more of this. ”

“ Their blush is departed—yet feel how sweet,
As you lean o'er the vase, is the air that you meet!
And is not this Love, tho' the glories may fall
Of the light of his earlier coronal?
How sweet a memory lingers still,
Mid wreck and mid ruin, mid sorrow and ill!
Love's wings may pass, but still they fling
A scent from the flowers that bind each wing;
And I, tho' wronged and slighted, yet
Have been too happy to quite forget:—
I hang o'er my thoughts, as I hang o'er these flowers,
And think what they have been in summer hours. ”

“ They were shadows, not fuel, to love's dull'd flame.
Love once formed an amulet,
With pearls, and a rainbow, and rose-leaves set.
The pearls were pure as pearls could be,
And white as maiden purity;
The rose had the beauty and breath of soul,
And the rainbow-changes crowned the whole.
Frown on your lover one little while,
Dearer will be the light of your smile;
Let your blush, laugh, and sigh ever mingle together,
Like the bloom, sun, and clouds of the sweet spring weather.
Love never must sleep in security,
Or most calm and cold will his waking be. ”

“ Audley was to me as a mother, and Edward and I loved each other with all the deep luxury of love in youth. It was luxury, for it was unconscious. Love is not happiness: hopes, pleasure, delicious and passionate moments of rapture—all these belong in love, but not to happiness. Its season of enjoyment is when its existence is unknown, when fear has not agitated, hope has not expanded the flower it but opens to fade, and jealousy and disappointment are alike unfeared, unfelt. The heart is animated by a secret music. ”

“ A night just formed for Hope's first dream of bliss,
Or for Love's yet more perfect happiness!
The moon is o'er a grove of cypress trees,
Weeping, like mourners, in the plaining breeze;
Echoing the music of a rill, whose song
Glided so sweetly, but so sad, along.
There is a little chapel in the shade,
Where many a pilgrim has knelt down and prayed
To the sweet saint, whose portrait, o'er the shrine,
The painter's skill has made all but divine. ”

“ Too heavy our burthen, too hopeless our thrall;
But heaven, that spreadeth o'er all its blue cope,
Hath given us memory,—hath given us hope!
And redeemeth the lot which the present hath cast,
By the fame of the future, the dream of the past.
The future! ah, there hath the spirit its home,
In its distance is written the glorious to come.
The great ones of earth lived but half for their day;
The grave was their altar, the far-off their way.
Step by step hath the mind its high empire won;
We live in the sunshine of what it hath done. ”

“ You may leave the far vale and the mountain behind;
Like the storm o'er the south in thy flight thou may'st be;
But where may'st thou fly from the memory of me?
The struggle, the pleasure, the toil, and the strife,
May fill up thy days with the hurry of life;
But night cometh lonely o'er land and o'er sea,
And in silence and shadow I still am with thee.
With no rose on my cheek, with no rose in my hair,
But cold as the love whose remembrance I bear,
Breathing vows that are broken, and hopes that are fled,
A voice breaks thy slumber—the voice of the dead. ”

“ When, with its own o’ertasking, faint and weary,
The mind sinks down into that gloomy mood,
To which all future hours seem dark and dreary!
The soul is out of tune—its sweet notes scattered—
Vexed—irritable—harsh—its power is flown:
Like some fine lute, whose higher chords are shattered
By forcing too much music from their tone.
But few can pity such a mood as this,
Because they know it not—calm is their sadness,
Tranquil their joy; they know not how it is
Genius is feverish in its grief and gladness. ”

“ Which haunts the lone garden, and hallows the grove;
Which makes the old oak tree and primrose bank fair,
With the memories of childhood whose playtime was there.
Tis our spirits which fling round the joy which they take,
The best of our pleasures are those which we make,
We look to the past, and remember the while,
Our own buoyant step, and our own sunny smile.
A pathway of silver was tracked on the wave,
The oars left behind them the light which they gave,
And the slight boat flew over the moonlighted brine,
Till the coast in the distance was one shadowy line. ”

“ Bright be the hearth, may the eyes you love best
Greet the long-absent again to his rest;
Be thy life like glad music which floateth away
As the gale lingering over the rose-tree in May.
But yet while thy moments in melody roll,
Be one dark remembrance left on thy soul,
Be the song of the evening thrice sad on thine ear—
Then think how your twilights were past away here.
And yet let the shadow of sorrowing be
Light as the dream of the morning to thee!
One fond, faint recollection, one last sigh of thine
May be granted to love so devoted as mine! ”

“ With his well-filled net and glittering spoil:
Well has the noon-tide repaid its toil.
While the ships that lie in the distance away,
Catch on their canvass the crimsoning ray;
Like fairy ships in the tales of old,
When the sails they spread were purple and gold.
Then the deep delight of the starry night,
With its shadowy depths and dreamy light:
When far away spreads the boundless sea,
As if it imaged infinity.
Let me hear the winds go singing by,
Lulling the waves with their melody:
While the moon like a mother watches their sleep,
And I ask no home but beside the deep. ”

“ To dream that love they have but dream'd as yet;—
But dream'd! Alas, that love should ever be
A happiness but made for phantasie!
And flowers are by her side, and her dark eye
Seems as it read in them her destiny.
She knew whose hand had gather'd them, she knew
Whose sigh and touch were on their scent and hue.
Beautiful language! Love's peculiar, own,
But only to the spring and summer known.
Ah! little marvel in such clime and age
As that of our too earth-bound pilgrimage,
That we should daily hear that love is fled,
And hope grown pale, and lighted feelings dead. ”

“ Memories, like phantoms, haunt me while I wander
Beneath the drooping boughs of each old tree:
I grow too sad as mournfully I ponder
Things that are not—and yet that used to be—
⁠A long while ago.
Worn out—the heart seems like a ruin'd altar:—
Where are the friends, and where the faith of yore?
My eyes grow dim with tears—my footsteps falter—
Thinking of those whom I can love no more.
We change, and others change—while recollection
Fain would renew what it can but recal.
Dark are life's dreams, and weary its affection,
And cold its hopes—and yet I felt them all
⁠A long while ago. ”

“ THE DEATH OF MARGARET AUDELEY.
BY L. E. L.
The shadow of the yew-trees has left an open space;
The sunshine rests upon it as if it loved the place.
A growth of early primroses and green grass hides the tomb—
How can it be the place of death with all the spring in bloom!
And she who there is sleeping, how ever could she die!
So beautiful, so happy, death should have past her by.
But last week she was singing in the fulness of her mirth—
Can a place so soon be desolate as is her place of birth! ”

“ The bride-like hyacinth, drooping as with shame,
And the anemone, whose cheek of flame
Is golden, as it were the flower the sun,
In his noon hour, most loved to look upon.
At first the pillared halls were still and lone,
As if some fairy palace, all unknown
To mortal eye or step:—this was not long—
Wakened the lutes, and rose the sound of song;
And the wide mirrors glittered with the crowd
Of changing shapes: the young, the fair, the proud,
Came thronging in. ”

“ That thy young spirit priz'd, and thou mayst tell,
Were mine the fairest laurel Bard e'er gain'd,
In days when Greece was proud to grace the lyre;
Were mine the fame, before whose glory life
Sinks into nothingness, they could not be
So precious as the slightest wreath of thine:
It is my thought of pride, my cherish'd prize,
To breathe one song not quite unworthy thee.
But, Hope! thy charmed voice I may not trust;
To list to thy sweet promises, is but
To throw the seeds of pleasure to the wind. ”

“ There are no flowers on its troubled waters,—no sunshine on its banks;—or to drop metaphor, there seems no place for the gentler affections, graces, and sentiments of existence. Fear is upon you, and around you. You turn to some side-street; you seek to escape the tumult and the throng. You find yourself on one of the bridges. The scattered rays on each side, and the vapoury lamps, fling a faint and unnatural light on the dark arches which seem hung in air. Below is the river, gloomy, sepulchral,—a river of smoke. ”

“ While the spirit of beauty rejoicing has birth.
Farewell to thee, April, a gentle farewell,
Thou hast saved the young rose in its emerald cell;
Sweet nurse, thou hast mingled thy sunshine and showers,
Like kisses and tears, on thy children the flowers.
As a hope, when fulfilled, to sweet memory turns,
We shall think of thy clouds as the odorous urns,
Whence colour, and freshness, and fragrance were wept;
We shall think of thy rainbows, their promise is kept.
There is not a cloud on the morning's blue way,
And the daylight is breaking, the first of the May. ”

“ A thousand dreams, the fanciful of youth's enchanted hour,
When the heart, begirt with dreams, is like an early rose in flower,
With its colours and its odours, the beautiful and frail,
These fading, and those borne away by every passing gale:
How like the hopes and vanities that fill the human heart,
Thus opening, in the sweet spring-time—but only to depart!
I turn on life's imaginings an eye too calm and cold,
Such dreams for aye have lost on me their fascinating hold ”

“ Love's flowers have dropp'd from off Love's chain;
Enough to say that they are gone,
And that they cannot bloom again.
I know not what the pangs may be
That hearts betray'd or slighted prove—
I speak but of the misery
That waits on fond and mutual love.
The torture of an absent hour,
When doubts mock Reason's faint control:—
’Tis fearful thinking of the power
Another holds upon our soul!
To think another has in thrall
All of life's best and dearest part—
Our hopes, affections, trusted all
To that frail bark—the human heart. ”

“ When those sweet eyes will seek the ground,
Or, raised, will only seek to see,
What language, till that hour unknown,
In other eyes can be.
That cheek will wear a deeper rose,
Whose crimson colours never glow
But when they speak instead of words,
For the full heart below.
Pause lady, on thy present time,
It is life's brightest and its best;
Pause ere thou lettest love disturb
Thy spirit's sunny rest.
For never yet came Love alone,
Companions strange and sad has he,
Doubts, fears, regrets, and withering tears;—
And must these be for thee? ”