Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ He heard the music of the fountain come—
A sweet and welcome voice upon the wind—
He bounded on with the light steps of hope,
Of youth and happiness. He left the wood,
And looked upon—a heap of mingled blood
And blackened ashes wet upon the ground!
He was awakened from his agony
By the low accents of a woman's voice;—
He looked, and knew Bianca. She was laid
Beside the fountain, while her long black hair
Hung like a veil down to her feet: her eyes,
So large, so dark, so wild, shone through the gloom,
Glaring like red insanity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Came from a fountain murmuring through the wood,
Less like the voice of sorrow than of love:
Tall trees were gathered round—the dark-green beech;
The sycamore, with scarlet colours on,
The herald of the autumn; dwarf rose-trees,
Covered with their last wealth; the poplar tall,
A silver spire; olives with their pale leaves;
And some most graceful shrubs, amid whose boughs
Were golden oranges; and hollow oaks,
Where the bees built their honey palaces. ”

“ By sickness, or by worse than sickness—sorrow!
And this is Love! Oh! why should woman love;
Wasting her dearest feelings, till health, hope,
Happiness, are but things of which henceforth
She'll only know the name? Her heart is seared:
A sweet light has been thrown upon its life,
To make its darkness the more terrible. ”

“ Not my sweet lute, that wrought me wrong;
It was not song that taught me love,
But it was love that taught me song.
If song be past, and hope undone,
And pulse, and head, and heart, are flame;
It is thy work, thou faithless one! ”

“ Of starry thought burns with the light,
The love, the life, by passion given.
I loved him, too, as woman loves—
Reckless of sorrow, sin, or scorn:
Life had no evil destiny
That, with him, I could not have borne! ”

“ And when the grave shall open for me,—
I care not how soon that time may be,—
Never a rose shall grow on that tomb,
It breathes too much of hope and of bloom;—
But there be that flower's meek regret,
The bending and deep-blue Violet! ”

“ More than a passing thought;
But every time and place will be
With thy remembrance fraught!
Farewell! we have not often met—
We may not meet again;
But on my heart the seal is set
Love never sets in vain! ”

“ Neither had seen before that day!
Spirit of Love! soon thy rose-plumes wear
The weight and the sully of canker and care:
Falsehood is round thee; Hope leads thee on,
Till every hue from thy pinion is gone. ”

“ For the pure rose of health; to live
For the dear life that Love could give.
Oh, youth may sicken at its bloom,
And wealth and fame pray for the tomb;—
But can Love bear from Love to part,
And not cling to that one dear heart? ”

“ My heart grew cold,—my brain swam round,—
I sank upon the cloister floor!
I lived,—if that may be called life,
From which each charm of life has fled—
Happiness gone, with hope and love,—
In all but breath already dead. ”

“ What, oh! what could I read there,
But the depths of Love's despair,—
Blighted feelings, like leaves that fall
The first from April's coronal,—
Hopes like meteors that shine and depart—
An early grave, and a broken heart! ”

“ There is a grief that wastes the heart,
Like mildew on a tulip's dyes,—
When hope, deferred but to depart,
Loses its smiles, but keeps its sighs;
When love's bark, with its anchor gone,
Clings to a straw, and still trusts on. ”

“ Alas! that man should ever win
So sweet a shrine to shame and sin
As woman’s heart!—and deeper woe
For her fond weakness, not to know
That yielding all but breaks the chain
That never reunites again! ”

“ Warning thy victims of what ills—
What burning tears, false god! are thine.
Before her was the darkling sea:
Behind the barren mountains rose—
A fit home for the broken heart
To weep away life, wrongs, and woes! ”

“ That falsest of false things—a mask of smiles;
Yet every pulse throbs at the memory
Of that which has been! Love is like the glass,
That throws its own rich colour over all,
And makes all beautiful. The morning looks
Its very loveliest, when the fresh air
Has tinged the cheek we love with its glad red ”

“ What have I more to say, my life!
But just to pray one smile of thine,
Telling I have not loved in vain—
That thou dost join these hopes of mine?
Yes, smile, sweet love! our life will be
As radiant as a fairy tale! ”

“ Once more let me breathe thy sighs—
Look once more in those watching eyes!
Oh! but for thee, and grief of thine,
And parting, I should not repine!
It is deep happiness to die,
Yet live in Love's dear memory. ”

“ The warfare is ended, the battle is won.
The mother hath taken the child from her breast,
And raised it to look on its father's crest.
The pathway is lined, as the bands pass along,
With maidens, who meet them with flowers and song.
And Zaide hath forgotten in Azim's arms
All her so false lamp's falser alarms.
This looks not a bridal,—the singers are mute,
Still is the mandore, and breathless the lute;
Yet there the bride sits. Her dark hair is bound,
And the robe of her marriage floats white on the ground.
Oh! where is the lover, the bridegroom?—oh! where? ”

“ Which seemed to hold communion with her thought,
There was a smile which gave hope energy.
She prayed one deep wild prayer,—that she might gain
The home she hoped:—then sought that home again.
A flush of beauty is upon the sky—
Eve's last warm blushes—like the crimson dye
The maiden wears, when first her dark eyes meet
The graceful lover's, sighing at her feet.
And there were sound of music on the breeze,
And perfume shaken from the citron trees ”

“ Methinks, might that sweet season last,
In which our first love-dream is past;
Ere doubts and cares, and jealous pain,
Are flaws in the heart's diamond-chain;—
Men might forget to think on Heaven,
And yet have the sweet sin forgiven. ”

“ When the Persian’s chain he broke;
Or that low and honey tone,
Making woman’s heart his own;
Such as should be heard at night,
In the dim and sweet starlight;
Sounds that haunt a beauty’s sleep,
Treasures for her heart to keep. ”

“ But then he marked the youth’s black curls
Were dripping wet with foam and blood;
And that the maiden’s tresses dark
Were heavy with the briny flood!
Woe for the wind!—woe for the wave!
They sleep the slumber of the grave! ”

“ Was the next moment hidden on his bosom.
But there was happiness even in that farewell,
Affection and deep confidence,
Tenderness, hope—for Love lights Hope,—and tears,
Delicious tears! the heart's own dew. ”

“ And giving to the rose pearl diadems.
There is a pilgrim by that old grey tree,
With head upon her hand, bent mournfully;
And looking round upon each lovely thing,
And breathing the sweet air, as they could bring
To her no beauty and no solacing. ”

“ As every leaf and every flower
Were being numbered in her heart;—
There are no looks like those which dwell
On long-remembered things, which soon
Must take our first and last farewell!
Day fades apace ”

“ Like Hope's own bark, all bloom and light.
There's not one breath of wind on the air,
The heavens are cloudless, the waters are fair,
No dew is falling; yet woe to that shade!
The maiden is weeping—her lamp has decayed. ”

“ Upon her beauty;—but the half-breathed sighs,
The deepening colour, timid smiling eyes,⁠
Told that she listened Love's sweet flatteries.
Then they were silent:—words are little aid
To Love, whose deepest vows are ever made
By the heart's beat alone. ”

“ As the sleep of a child, as the dew-fall of balm.
Fear has not darkened thee; Hope has not made
The blossoms expand, it but opens to fade.
Nothing is known of those wearing fears
Which will shadow the light of thy after-years. ”

“ It is the spirit’s bitterest pain
To love, to be beloved again;
And yet between a gulf which ever
The hearts that burn to meet must sever
And he was vowed to one sweet star,
Bright yet to him, but bright afar. ”

“ They have raised the death-pyre of sweet-scented wood,
And sprinkled it o'er with the sacred flood
Of the Ganges. The priests are assembled:—their song
Sinks deep on the ear as they bear her along,
That bride of the dead. ”

“ And his road lay through ruined villages.
Though cold, the ashes still were red, for blood
Had quenched the flames; and aged men sat down
And would not leave the embers, for they said
They were too old to seek another home.
Leandro met with one whom he had known
In other days, and asked of his own valley:—
It yet was safe, unscathed by the war-storm.
He knelt down in deep thankfulness; and then,
Through death and danger, sought the grove once more.
His way had been through a thick beechen wood;
The moon, athwart the boughs, had poured her light,
Like Hope, to guide him onwards. ”

“ The spider's garrison: there is not one
Without some strange old legend of the days
When love was life and death,—when lady's glove
Or sunny curl were banners of the battle.
My history is of the tower which looks
Upon the little island
Lord Herbert sat him in his hall: the hearth
Was blazing as it mocked the storm without
With its red cheerfulness; the dark hounds lay
Around the fire ”

“ I took my lute,—my eye had been
Wandering round the lovely scene,
Filled with those melancholy tears,
Which come when all most bright appears,
And hold their strange and secret power,
Even on pleasure’s golden hour. ”

“ It was a silent and a lovely place,
Where Peace might rest her white wings. But one came
From out the cottage,—not as one who comes
To gaze upon the beauty of the sky
And fill his spirit with a calm delight ”

“ To the dim shadow of the aged beech,
She was worn to a shadow; colourless
The cheek once dyed by her own mountain-rose.
She reached the grave, and died upon the sod!
They laid her by her lover:—and her tale
Is often on the songs that the guitar
Echoes in the lime valleys of Castile! ”

“ O’er head a sullen scream was heard,
As sought the land a white sea-bird,
Her pale wings like a meteor streaming.
Upon the waves a light is gleaming—
Ill-omened brightness, sent by Death
To light the night-black depths beneath. ”

“ Yet leaving it most beautiful.
Raven curls their shadow threw,
Like the twilight’s darkening hue,
O’er the pure and mountain snow
Of his high and haughty brow;
Lighted by a smile, whose spell
Words are powerless to tell. ”

“ All passion’s mighty suffering
Ere they may reach the blessed spring.
And some who waste their lives to find
A prize which they may never win:
Like those who search for Irem’s groves,
Which found, they may not enter in. ”

“ But there are some whose love is high,
Entire, and sole idolatry;
Who, turning from a heartless world,
Ask some dear thing, which may renew
Affection’s severed links, and be
As true as they themselves are true.
But Love’s bright fount is never pure ”

“ A wide heath covered with thick furze, whose flowers
So bright, are like the pleasures of this world,
Beautiful in the distance, but, once gained,
Little worth, piercing through the thorns which grow
Around them ever. ”

“ But Ida only wept, and wreathed
Her white arms round his neck; then breathed
Those passionate complaints that wring
A woman’s heart, yet never bring
Redress. She called upon each tree
To witness her lone constancy! ”

“ An alcove filled with shrubs and flowers,
But lighted by the distant hall,
With one or two fair statues placed,
Like deities of the sweet shrine
That human art should ever frame
Such shapes so utterly divine! ”

“ Soft words that ladies love to hear.
Alas!—the tale is quickly told—
His love hath felt the curse of gold!
And he is bartering his heart
For that in which it hath no part.
There’s many an ill that clings to love ”

“ Reached not to the laburnum's height, whose boughs
Shook over them bright showers of golden bloom.
Sweet silence reigned around:—no other sound
Came on the air, than when the shepherd made
The reed-pipe rudely musical, or notes
From the wild birds, or children in their play
Sending forth shouts or laughter. Strangers came
Rarely or never near the lonely place.⁠.⁠.⁠. ”