Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ We dearly buy our pleasures, we repay
By some deep suffering; or they decay
Or change to pain, and curse us by their stay.
A world of ashes is beneath our feet—
Cold ashes of each beautiful deceit,
Owned by long silent hearts, that beat as ours now beat.
How can we trust our own? we waste our breath;
We heap up hope and joy in one bright wreath;—
Our altar is the grave—our priest is death.
But, ah! death is repose;—'tis not our doom,—
The cold, the calm, that haunts my soul with gloom:
I tremble at the passage to the tomb. ”

“ And while it carries an enchanter's wand,
Its spells are conscious of their earthly bond.
We almost fear the presence of our joy;
It doth tempt Fate, the stern one, to destroy,
Fate in whose hands this world is as a toy. ”