Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ ORIGINAL POETRY.
[Six Songs of Love, Constancy, Romance, Inconstancy, Truth, and Marriage.]
Oh! yet one smile, tho' dark may lower
Around thee clouds of woe and ill,
Let me yet feel that I have power,
Mid Fate's bleak storms, to soothe thee still.
Tho' sadness be upon thy brow,
Yet let it turn, dear love, to me,
I cannot bear that thou should'st know
Sorrow I do not share with thee.
True love's wreath is of mountain flowers,
They stand the storm and brave the blast,
And blossom on, so love like ours
Is sweetest when all else is past. ”

“ Like a beauty is veiled by the shadow of night.
When the heart-heat is soft as the sun's farewell beams,
When the spirit is melting in tenderest dreams;
A wanderer, dear England, from thee and from thine,
Yet the hearths I have left are my bosom's best shrine;
And dear are those bells, for most precious to me,
Whatever can wake a remembrance of thee;
They bring back the memory of long absent times,
Young hopes and young joys are revived in those chimes. ”

“ To see him borne along
To where the croaking ravens lurk,
And where the earth worms dwell:
A widow's hood will suit my face,
And black becomes me well.
And he must make a settlement,
I'll have no man without ”