Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ Not on the early world's romances,
Should the cell close its funeral stone!
Still is the quiet cloister wanted,
For those who wear a weary eye;
Whose life has long been disenchanted,
Who have one only wish—to die. ”

“ But alone, in the night, with the planets above,
Or the silvery moon, is the hour that we love;
Cold, pale is the light, and it suits with our doom,
For our heart has no warmth, and our cheek has no bloom. ”

“ My spirit brightened when he smiled;
I never gave him cause to sigh,—
Yet loved with woman’s fondness too,
That knows it is her life she gives;
Deep, earnest, passionate, and true,
The love that in the spirit lives. ”

“ So fresh are still the fancies
That linger round your growth.
With what an eager fondness
I leant your leaves above!
Oh! in our life’s beginning,
The heart is full of love!
We have a world within us,
Unwasted and unchilled ”

“ Of happiness it dies:
It springeth from a fancy first,
And with a fancy flies.
Ay, let them prettily complain,
With graceful sorrow strive;
They should be glad of my disdain,
It keeps their love alive. ”

“ Not to the sunny hours
That waken other flowers,
Dost thou fling forth the odour [1] of thy sighing
But in the time of gloom,
Is yielded thy perfume,
Like Love, that lives when all beside is dying. ”

“ In the obscurity of those dim times [3] ?
Little we know the secrets that surround us,
And much has vanished from our later day;
Mature with many a mystery has bound us,
And much of our old love has passed away. ”

“ And they shall breathe my memory, and mine only,
Startling thy soul with hopes no longer fair,
And love that will but rise to leave thee lonely.
Immortal is the gift that I inherit:—
Eternal is the loveliness of verse ”

“ To whom such charmed lot were earth's best boon.
What is the world we live in but a strife
Of vanity and envy, hate and fear?
That what we so miscall our social life
Is one great error—sullen, vast and drear. ”

“ By which they may be known?
" 'Fair flower, that I have wept to see
Day after day arise;
I little thought that thou wouldst be
Welcomed with tearful eyes!
" 'Why should there be divided truth?
Ah! why should one love on? ”

“ It is the Hyacinth, whose sweet bells stooping,
Bend with the odours [1] heavy in their cells;
Amid the shadows of their fragrant drooping,
Memory, that is itself a shadow, dwells. ”

“ From the review in The Literary Gazette, 21st October 1837, page 667
"The Poppy.
Pale are her enchanted slumbers;
Pale is she with many dreams;
That white brow the turban cumbers;
Wan, yet feverish she seems.
Not the fountain's silvery flowing
Lulls that haunted sleep;
Round her are wild visions growing,
Such as wake and weep.
Drugg'd is that impassioned sleeping,
Sleep that is like life ”