Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ Too dear are the fetters which wind round my heart.
Thy words were enchanted—and ruled me at will;
My spirit is haunted, remembering them still.
So earnest, so tender—the full heart was there;
Ah! song might surrender its lute in despair.
I deemed that I knew thee as none ever knew;
That 'twas mine to subdue thee, and thine to be true.
I deemed to my keeping thy memory had brought
The depths that were sleeping of innermost thought.
The bitter concealings life’s treacheries teach,
The long-subdued feelings the world cannot reach—
Thy mask to the many was worn not for me ”

“ Round the slight ankle, meet for such display,
⁠The band of gold.
Chains and bright stones are on her arms and neck;
What pleasant vanities are linked with them,
Of happy hours, which youth delights to deck
⁠With gold and gem.
She comes! So comes the Moon, when has she found
A silvery path wherein through heaven to glide.
Fling the white veil—a summer cloud—around;
⁠She is a bride!
And yet the crowd that gather at her side
Are pale, and every gazer holds his breath. ”

“ Oh, what a power and duty is our own!
’Tis ours to shed upon man’s present day
The blessing of the future and the past.
How much of India yet in darkness lies!
We must dethrone the idol, and dispel
The shadows that but herald the true faith.—
We must give peace, love, charity, to earth;
And from old superstitions, vain beliefs,
And false religions, realize the true:
So morning springs from out the depths of night.
The temple of Borro Boedoor was in former days the most celebrated Budha temple in the Island of Java equally distinguished for its extent and its magnificence. ”

“ They make a little boat out of a cocoa-nut shell, place a small lamp and flowers within this tiny ark of the heart, and launch it upon the Ganges. If it float out of sight with its lamp still burning, the omen is prosperous; if it sinks, the love of which it questions, is ill-fated. ”

“ Above the earth’s snow tomb;
Thus lovely, and thus lonely,
I bless thee for thy bloom.
Though the singing rill be frozen,
While the wind forsakes the west;
Though the singing birds have chosen
Some lone and silent rest ”

“ That Indian girl could tell;
Fate sets apart one common doom
For all who love too well.
The proud—the shy—the sensitive,—
Life has not many such;
They dearly buy their happiness,
By feeling it too much. ”

“ Half a home, and half a grave;
Dark in the noontide hour ’twill be—
Dark—and the darker the fitter for me.
The hills are rough, and the hills are bare,
More like the heart that harboureth there. ”

“ By sign of cross, and sound of bell,
The world-worn heart can beat alone.
How needful some such tranquil place,
Let many a weary one attest,
Who turns from life’s impatient race,
And asks for nothing but for rest. ”

“ Notwithstanding the care taken for their preservation, they often become the prey of the kingfisher. Tombs in India are palaces, vast and immutable as the slumbers which they cover. As if to add the contrast of natural fertility to human decay, the garden always surrounds the grave. ”

“ With nothing to recall
But bitter taunts, and careless words,
And looks more cold than all.
Alas! for love, that sits at home,
Forsaken, and yet fond;
The grief that sits beside the hearth,
Life has no grief beyond. ”

“ With universal love.
Past that still hour, and its pale moon,
The city is alive;
It is the busy hour of noon,
When man must seek and strive.
The pressure of our actual life
Is on the waking brow ”

“ A heavy weight is on the air,
Which hangs as o’er a tomb.
It is a tomb which wealth and rank
Have built themselves around—
The general sympathies have shrank
Like flowers on high dry ground.
None heed the wandering boy who sings,
An orphan though so young ”

“ And missed while it is given:
’Tis given—for the claims of earth
Are less than those of heaven.
Few save the poor feel for the poor,
The rich know not how hard
It is to be of needful food
And needful rest debarred. ”

“ The sail from Penang to Singapore presents the loveliest succession of scenery which ocean can produce. The sea is studded with tracts of fairy-land, glittering like emeralds in the golden sun, where the waving trees dip their long branches into the water ”

“ I nourished thee and reared thee, and now where art thou gone! take me with thee, Oh! my child, my child! thou play'dst around me like a gold top, my child! the like of thy face I have never seen, my child! let fire devour the eyes of men, my child. ”

“ From whence those lightnings come,
That kindle from a far and better day.
The light that is of heaven shone there the first,
The elements of art,
Mankind’s diviner part;
There was young science in its cradle nurst. ”

“ I come to thee now, my long hair on the gale,
It is wreathed with no red rose, is bound with no veil,
It is dark with the sea damps, and wet with the spray,
The gold of its auburn has long past away. ”

“ An arid plain leads to the luxuriant gardens which still adorn the mausoleum where Nour Jahan and the lovely partner of his throne "sleep the sleep that knows no waking." Ponds of gold and silver fish are the common ornaments of a great man’s grounds in India. ”

“ OXFORD STREET.
IFE in its many shapes was there,
The busy and the gay;
Faces that seemed too young and fair
To ever know decay.
Wealth, with its waste, its pomp, and pride,
Led forth its glittering train ”

“ Christmas is coming, my brother dear,
And Christmas comes, my brother, but once a year.
The last leaf hath departed
From off the old oak tree,
But there is the wreath of misletoe
Where the green leaf used to be.
And we’ll hang up the charmed coronal
Above the highest door,
And strangers all must pay the fine
Ere they tread the fairy floor.
Christmas is coming, my brother dear,
And Christmas comes, my brother, but once a year. ”

“ Amid the firs, o’er the soundless snow.
Lo! the pine is singing its murmuring song,
Over our heads as we pass alone;
And every bough with pearl is hung,
Whiter than those that from ocean sprung. ”

“ While the echoes that haunt the dim caverns repeat,
The music they make in repeating more sweet.
There are colours like rainbows spread over the wall,
For the damps treasure sunbeams wherever they fall;
In each little nook where the daylight finds room
Wild flow'rets like fairy gifts burst into bloom. ”

“ Let us seek the green rush by the deep woodland springs.
In the olden time, when the churches were strewn with rushes, the ceremony of changing them was a yearly religious festival. The custom, once universal, now lingers only in some of the remote northern districts. There, bunches of rushes, gaily ornamented, attended by banners and music, are still borne in triumph by the young people of the village. ”

“ A rugged path leads to this beautiful and spacious cavern, which may well, in former days, have been the place of refuge supposed in the foregoing poem. The brook which runs through it is broken by the pointed rock into many waterfalls, and also feeds several small lakes; a spring trickles from the roof, and the sides are covered with a profusion of moss, and weeds, and wild flowers. Like most of these caverns, the walls are covered with sparry incrustations. ”

“ No more on the flight of the vulture
The dark hour of vict'ry depends.
The stars have forgotten their science,
Or we have forgotten its lore;
In the rulers, the bright ones of midnight,
We question of fortune no more. ”

“ How wonderful the common street,
Its tumult and its throng,
The hurrying of the thousand feet
That bear life's cares along.
How strongly is the present felt,
With such a scene beside;
All sounds in one vast murmur melt
The thunder of the tide. ”

“ Looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two lions in the way."—Pilgrim's Progress.
He wandered on a weary way,
A weary way he wandered on;
Till eagerness and fortitude—
Till all but hope were gone.
The night fell dark around his steps,
And terrible is falling night,
For cheerful thoughts of enterprise
Attend on morning’s light.
And there were Lions in the way—
The lion mighty in his wrath—
No marvel that the traveller shrank
From such a dreary path. ”

“ The remains of an altar may still be seen at the east end, at which mass was occasionally performed. Between this room and the chapel is a small opening, whence the hermit might make confession, and behold the elevation of the host. Near this opening is a door leading into the chapel, and over it a small escutcheon with all the emblems of the passion—the cross—the crown of thorns—the nails—the spear—and the sponge. On the south side of the altar is a cenotaph supporting three figures; the principal one being that of a female, over whom an angel is hovering ”

“ She comes with the midnight—meet not her cold eye,
It shines but on those who are fated to die.
She comes with the midnight, when spirits have power—
She comes with the midnight, and evil the hour. ”

“ The mode of catching the fish is as follows: piles or stakes, of considerable size and length, are sunk and secured at certain distances from the shore, extending sometimes several miles out to sea; these are driven or forced down by fastening boats to them at high water, heavily laden with ballast, which, by their own weight as the tide falls, force the stakes deeper into the sandy or muddy bottom. ”

“ We shall hear of each other—oh! misery to hear
Those names from another that once were so dear!
What slight words will sting us that breathe of the past,
And slight things will bring us thoughts fated to last. ”

“ That every one should share.
They bear it to their native land,
And labour to impart
The Christian knowledge that subdues
Yet elevates the heart.
Oh, noble enterprise! how much
For man by man is won! ”

“ THE COLERAINE SALMON LEAP.
"So numerous are the fish frequenting this river, that the average amount is estimated at £1,000 per annum; and on one, occasion 1,500 salmon were taken at a single drag of the net."—I, however, have only celebrated the exploits of a single fisher.
I remember a curious exploit of a gentleman, who went out in the morning to shoot, and shot a salmon; in the afternoon to fish, and caught a hare. The fact was, there had been a flood, which had dashed a salmon on the banks, where a gun was the readiest means of despatching it. ”

“ The western coasts of India abound with a great variety of fish, of excellent quality; and a considerable population in the villages along the seashore is occupied in catching it, and, in a great measure, subsist upon it. ”

“ How I abhorr'd ye all!
And then those dreadful tables
Of shillings, pence, and pounds!
Though I own their greater trouble
In after life abounds.
’Tis strange how memory lingers
About those early hours ”

“ The expenses attending the burning of the dead are too great for any but the rich. When the infant of a poor Hindoo dies, the wretched mother takes it up in her arms, and carries it to the river, on the bank of which she lays it for some time on a piece of mat, or on the sands ”

“ Madura was at one period the centre of "might, majesty, and dominion" in India. One of its ancient monarchs in the second century sent an embassy on a splendid scale to Augustus Caesar at Rome. It was also the spot, from the meridian of which the Hindoo astronomers made their calculations. The mode of calculating by the ten numerals, after having been invented and long practised here, was first introduced into Europe by the Arabs. Here too, was the celebrated college whose influence was exercised so beneficially on the intellect of India ”

“ In the centre of the Fall, a vast body of water rushes in an unbroken sheet; but towards the extremities, the fluid mass is shivered by rocky projections into minute particles, assuming a variety of forms, and radiant with prismatic hues. ”

“ The concussion of the waters at Niagara strikes less forcibly on the ear than might be supposed; within a very short distance of the Falls, conversation may be maintained without any great exertion of the voice. ”

“ Adam Clarke, of Liverpool, rightly judging that London, with its usual selfish and stimulating course of lionization, would defeat the high purposes of their visit. The progress of the strangers was so satisfactory, that at the end of two years Dr. Clarke publicly baptized them. They returned to Ceylon, where one is employed as a Missionary, and the other is an officer in the civil service. The benefit of their example and instruction may be more easily imagined than calculated. ”

“ To the inhabitants of Quebec, the cone is a source of endless amusement. When the weather is temperate, parties in single-horse curricles and tandems are seen hurrying to the spot, to enjoy the beauty of the scene, and to make descents, upon small sleighs, from the top of the cone to the plain below. ”

“ Beverley Minster is a remarkable example of Perpendicular Gothic style and is said to be the most impressive church in the UK that is not a cathedral. There has been a religious building on the spot since at least 700 AD, when St John of Beverly founded a monastery. A later church burned down in 1188, and the present building was started in 1220, though it took 200 years to complete. ”

“ Only the hope that looketh up to heaven.
Warkworth Hermitage is situated about half a mile above Warkworth Castle, on the brink of the Coquet river. This venerable retreat is probably the best preserved and the most entire work of its kind now remaining in the kingdom. ”

“ The volume of air carried down by the waters in their descent, so greatly diminishes the sustaining power of the element, that only substances of the greatest buoyancy will float in the chasm beneath. The spectator can advance to a great distance behind the cascade, by traversing a ledge of rock connected with the overhanging cliff ”