Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ Or pearls bound her dark tresses, there were few
Of nobler birth, or of more Indian wealth.
So very young, so beautiful, 'twas like
The sudden fading of a bud in spring—
On which there is no mark of blight or worm,
When her place was found vacant in the dance,
And her soft voice was missed; when it was said
That in a convent's solitude she hid
The light and bloom of her sweet April time.
They did not know how youth's best pleasures pall
When the heart is not in them, or how much
Of happiness is in those secret thoughts
Which each hides from the other. ”

“ One of love and woman's power,
To Mandalla's sleeping hour.
Joyless and dark was his jewelled throne
When Mandalla awakened and found him alone.
He drank the perfume that around him swept,
'Twas not sweet as the sigh he drank as he slept;
There was music, but where was the voice, at whose thrill
Every pulse in his veins was throbbing still?
Dim was the home at his native star
While the light of woman and love was afar;
And lips of the rosebud, and violet eyes
Are the sunniest flowers in Paradise. ”

“ Hide the heart that lies burning and black below.
And there, beneath the flowered shade
By a pink acacia made,
Mandalla lay, and by his side,
With eye and breath and blush that vied
With the star and with the flower
In their own and loveliest hour,
Was that fair Bayadere, the dove
Yet nestling in her long black hair:
She has now more than that to love,
And the loved one sat by her there. ”

“ The air is heavy with perfume—the dew,
Like love's power over woman, calling forth
The soul of sweetness, on the sumbal lies,
Till every scarlet berry yields its incense;
The pale mangolia [1] , with its flowers of light,
The carmalata, crimson as a blush,
All, all yield their sweet offerings to the moon:—
But war is in these groves, and the white tents,
Where dwell the children of the sword,
Are pitched amid the yellow jessamines. ”

“ Waked she her lute, if it breached not his name?
Lay she in dreams, but some thought of him came?
No flowers, no smiles, were on life's dull tide,
When Juan was not by his Inez' side.
And yet they parted! Still there clings
As earth-stain to the fairest things;
And love, that most delicious gift
Upon life's shrine of sorrow left,
Has its own share of suffering:
A shade falls from its radiant wing,
A spot steals o'er its sunny brow,
Fades the rose-lip's witching glow. ”

“ Of poetry, to me my hope, my whole
Happiness of existence, there will be
Some gentlest tones that I have caught from thee!
Will not each heart-pulse vibrate, as I tell
Of faith even unto death unchangeable!
Leander and his Hero! they should be,
When youthful lovers talk of constancy,
Invoked. Oh, for one breath of softest song,
Such as on summer evenings floats along,
To murmur low their history! every word
That whispers of them, should be like those heard
At moonlight casements, when th' awakened maid
Sighs her soft answer to the serenade. ”

“ Silver'd with dew and star-light, spread beneath,
Dotted with clumps of gloomy cypresses,
Mixed with the fairer blossomed orange trees.
And far beyond, like shadowy thunder-clouds,
Rose high but distant hills; and over all
A soft and blue Italian sky,—the blue
That painters and that poets love,—the blue
The lover worships in the maiden's eyes,
Whose beauty is their power and spell. And, like
Sweet incense to sweet shrines, dew-scented flowers
Filled up the casements ”

“ Safe or far safer than a sanctuary,—
For even that, though shielded by God's name,
Man holds not sacred. Here at least his power
Is neither felt nor feared. The chamois rests
When harassed, as the powerless ever are;
It flies before the hunter. Small as still,
A skilful archer's bow would send the shaft
Across its utmost boundary, and half
Is covered with dark pines, which in the spring
Send forth sweet odours, even as they felt
As parents do, rejoicing o'er their children
In the green promise of their youthful shoots,
The spreading of their fresh and fragrant leaves. ”

“ Ride on thy coal-black steed, thou false one! ride.
How gallant is thy bearing, and how proud
Wave the white glancings of thy plume! Ride on,
And at a thousand shout thy name, heed not
If one shall deeply curse it. When thy heart
Beats with the presence of thy fair young bride,
Remember not the one which thou hast left,
A jewel tarnished in its light, to break ”

“ Every thing changed, yet still the very same,
Then feel the change was in my heart? to live
'Mid doubts, anxieties, and feverish hopes,
And such soul sickening fears? I heard the fleet
Had left Dalmatia; and that very day
How dark the tempest gathered o'er the sky—
The wind came like a giant in its strength,
The forest pines were bowed down to the ground,
The oak, which had for ages stood, where sleep
My ancestors—the sign our banners rear—
Was blasted by the lightning, and all said
Some doomed ill was hanging o'er our race. ”

“ For many years he has not breathed the air,
The wholesome open air; the sun, the moon,
The stars, the clouds, the fair blue heaven, the spring,
The flowers, the trees, and the sweet face of man,
Song, or words yet more musical than song,
Affections, feelings, social intercourse
(Unless remembered in his fairy dreams)
Have all been strangers to his solitude!—
A curse is set on him, like poverty,
Or leprosy, or the red plague, but worse,—
The heart has sent its fire up to the brain,
And he is mad. ”

“ The searched footprints sorrow leaves in passing
O'er the clear brow of youth?—It may but be
An idle thought, but I have dreamed thou wert
A captive in thy hopelessness: afar
From the sweet home of thy young infancy,
Whose image unto thee is as a dream
Of fire and slaughter, I can see thee wasting,
Sick for thy native air, loathing the light
And cheerfulness of men ”

“ There is a curse laid on the human heart
Which hath a power, beyond all other things,
To wither and to waste:—disease, distress,
Remorse and poverty, are nothing to it!
It comes like winter on the bloom of youth,
Destroying and despoiling, till the cheek
Is pale with that worst famine, want of hope,—
Till the eyes have no brightness but their tears;
Till health be gone with hope, and till the heart
Has not a wish beyond the quiet grave ”

“ Beautiful are the hues that lie
On that Indian bird's blue wing,
With his rainbow crest and soft black eye,
And neck like the rose of spring.
Love's fond fancies are quickly caught
By links love only can see;
But too much truth there was in the thought
That likened that bird to thee.
To each all outward gifts belong,
But each wants the inward part:
That fair bird has not the sweet gift of song,
And you—oh, you want a heart! ”

“ Their cold reply. Yet these are all for her.
The rude world's outcast and love's wanderer.
Alas! that love, which is so sweet a thing,
Should ever cause guilt, grief and suffering;
That the lorn heart should ever have to brood
O'er wrongs and ruin in its solitude;
And, worst of all, that ever love should be
Forgetful of its own dear memory!
⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—⁠—
Ride on, ride with thy bridal company. ”

“ And thy sigh and thy blush were as sweet as those
Of thy sister, the rosebud there.
I have been like that bird of the eastern tale
Which has not a rest in the sky;
But the thought of that blush came in peace to my heart,
Like a pledge for the truth of that sigh. ”

“ Literary Gazette 8th November 1823, Page 719
THE BIRD.
Take that singing bird away!
It has too glad a lay
For an ear so lorn as mine;
And its wings are all too light,
And its feathers are too bright,
To rest in a bosom like mine. ”

“ And many a mariner kneels at home,
And blesses the beacon light.
Is not my light like that holier light
That heaven sheds over life's path,
Thought not of, prized not in stillness and shine,
But welcomed in darkness and wrath! ”

“ Seek ye not buds of brighter bloom,
Why should their beauty waste on the tomb?
I am too young for death, you say:
Fall not and fade not the green leaves in May?
Does not the rose in its light depart?
Needs there long life to break the heart? ”

“ Guarding like life what is so dear—
All this is love's delicious fear—
And yet delaying ere he presses
That lip so soft, that cheek so bright,
As tho' the joy of those caresses
Would, like the burst of sudden light,
Be too much happiness. ”

“ With a blush, like what the rose
To her moonlight minstrel shows;
Laughing at her love the while,—
Yet such softness in the smile,
As the sweet coquette would hide
Woman's love by woman's pride. ”

“ A chain of rose upon his wings,
Whose guardian was a dark-eyed Maid.
They lived in sweet companionship:
Enough for him one smile so bright;
Enough for her to live for him,
To watch his chain, to keep it light. ”

“ And wonder hand so light as mine
Should linger but on sorrow's tone.
They say that life, to one so young,
Must be a sweet and sunny view;
They know not how my soul has clung
To hope, and found that hope untrue ”

“ I would love thee as truly
As woman can love,
More dear than the light
From yon blue sky above;—
But I know that thy vows
Are too light to be true:
They are sweet as spring flowers,
And as perishing too! ”

“ Some Cupids have wings of the butterfly's plume,
While some have the wings of the dove;
The first is the Cupid most fitting for me—
I could not wear the willow for love.
I care not for falsehood, I can be false too;
Lose one love, there are others in plenty ”

“ Oh this is not that sweet love
Own companion to the dove;
But a wild and wandering thing,
Varying as the lights that fling
Radiance o'er his peacock's wing.
I do weep, that Love should be
Ever linked with Vanity. ”

“ But there wants the sweetest of breath and of bloom:
And the hall is lone, and the hall is drear,
For the smiling of woman shineth not here.
With urns of odour o'er him weeping,
Upon the couch a youth is sleeping:
His radiant hair is bound with stars,
Such as shine on the brow of night,
Filling the dome with diamond rays,
Only than his own curls less bright. ”

“ The gentle things that each had said.
But all this sweetness was not worth
The tears that dimm'd its after light,—
Love is a sweet star at its birth,
But one that sets in deepest night.—L. E. L. ”

“ As the poor bird is left to pine
We once could fondly cherish,
So when my heart replied to thine,
'Twas coldly left to perish.
Go, false one! bask in other eyes,
Some one may then deceive thee,
And thou wilt know the tears, the sighs,
That come when fond dreams leave thee.
Farewell! each sweet link of the heart
Thy falsehood now must sever ”

“ I will be true, dear love! to thee,
As that star to the night.
I will swear to thee by that sweet tree,
With the red rose blossoming;
I will be constant as those flowers
Are constant to the Spring. ”

“ I care not what sky may low'r above,
Or how dark our path may be.
The cloud may gloom, the thorn may spring,
And the desart before us lie;
I shall not look back,—can the fond dove's wing
Ere fail when her mate is nigh? ”

“ Upon a heart like mine,
The rose's leaf, the blue sea-spray,
Would be a safer shrine.
The rose's leaf will fade when blown,
The spray pass from the sea;
But neither are so quickly gone
As love that trusts to me. ”

“ And love's most precious boon will be
Never to feel the like again.
There is no gift beneath the sky,
No fairy charm, no syren lure,
Would tempt me yet again to try
What love once taught me to endure. ”

“ A Youth, with a Lyre in his hand, kneeling to a Female half turning to him, as in the act of reconciliation.
Yes! I have sinned 'gainst love and thee;
Both heart and harp have been untrue:
I cannot deem how they could be
Wakened by any one but you! ”

“ Literary Gazette, 29th March 1823, Page 203-204
(Songs)
The dream on the pillow
That flits with the day,
The leaf of the willow
A breath wears away;
The dust on the blossom,
The spray on the sea:
Aye—ask thine own bosom—
Are emblems of thee. ”

“ Dear Child, we now are left alone on earth,
The grave has those who loved us—desolate
Our home of happiness: the dear fire-side
Round which we clung has many a vacant place—
Death has pass'd over it. ”