Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ I am so happy when I meet his eyes;
What have I done that fate should now remove him,
Who takes the sunshine from my native skies?
I think upon him when the stars are keeping
Their weary watch above a world like ours ”

“ Fall the oriel's coloured rays;—
Like the false and shining seeming
Of this life's external show,
Veiling with an outward glitter
All that lies do dark below.
Many graves are round her lying,
Only one is in her heart ”

“ Lofty, impassioned, unconfined,
Genius and Love are confident:
Both conscious of their native heaven,
Not of the earth which they must tread,
Till Genius wastes its starry leven,
And Love droops down his radiant head. ”

“ How could one so lovely perish?
Why should one so young depart?—
With the crimson banners round her,
'Neath the scutcheon's gilded shade,
'Mid her old ancestral honours
Is a youthful maiden laid. ”

“ And the stately head is stooping,
And the cheek's rich dyes
⁠Are like marble white and dull.
Never shall Augustus cover
That imperial form with chains;
Yet the Beauty has a lover,
Death, almighty Death, remains! ”

“ From her cheek's red light,
And her wild eyes' midnight lustre
Grows more fiercely bright.
⁠Fate is by those festal hours,
⁠The fate of Cleopatra,
⁠The glad Egyptian Queen.
⁠VII.
Dark and darker grows the vision ”