Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ When foes meet hand to hand,—
The shout, the yell, the iron clang
Of meeting spear and brand.
I have stood when my own life-blood
Pour'd down like winter rain;
But rather would I shed its last
Than live that day again.
Squire, page, and leech my feverish haste
To seek me tidings sent;
And day was closing as I paced
Alone beside my tent;
When suddenly upon my hand
A bird sank down to rest,—
The falcon,—but its head was droop'd,
And soil'd and stain'd its breast
A light glanced through the trees: I knew
His courser's snowy hide,—
But that was dash'd with blood ”

“ To have pray'd a mass for the soul of the dead,
And a monumental stone.
"But I knew thy father had a son,
To whom the task would be dear:
Young knight, I kept the warrior's grave
For thee, and thou art here."
Sir Walter grasp'd the old man's hand,
But spoke he never a word;—
So still it was, that the fall of tears
On his mailed vest was heard.
Oh! the heart has all too many tears;
But none are like those that wait
On the blighted love, the loneliness
Of the young orphan's fate. ”

“ Its venom makes its life; ah! still
Earth's lasting growths are those of ill;—
And mined was the foundation stone,
The spirit's regal shrine o'erthrown.
Aimless and dark, the wandering mind
Yet had a beauty left behind;
A touch, a tone, a shade, the more
To tell of what had pass'd before.
She woke the harp, and backward flung
The cloud of hair, that pall-like hung
O'er her pale brow and radiant eyes,
Wild as the light of midnight skies,
When the red meteor rides the cloud,
Telling the storm has burst its shroud:
A passionate hue was on her cheek ”

“ And they knew St. Edith's prioress by her brow so deadly pale;
No sickly paleness of the cheek whence health and hope have fled,
But that deadly hue, so wan, so cold, which only suits the dead.
"The prey of the ungodly is taken by God's hand—
I lay the endless curse of change upon this doomed land:
They may come and possession take, even as thou hast done,
But the father never, never shall transmit it to his son.
"Yet I grieve for the fair branches, though of such evil tree;
But the weird is laid, and the curse is said, and it rests on thine and thee." ”

“ At length the black knight's steed rolls on the ground;
He rises like a tower. One desperate blow,
And the blood wells from Eglamour's fair brow;
His shield is dash'd in pieces: but just then,
Ere the recover'd blow was aim'd again,
He stakes his life upon a sudden thrust,
And his fierce foe is levell'd in the dust.
Gazed he in wonder on each giant limb,
Yet scarce he deem'd victory was won by him.
He went on bended knee: "Now, virgin queen,
Who hast my succour in this danger been,
Mother of God, these fair white deer shall be
Offer'd to-morrow at thy sanctuary." ”

“ Like timid hopes the lily shrank from sight;
The rose leant as it languish'd with delight,
Yet, bride-like, drooping in its crimson shame;
And the anemone, whose cheek of flame
Is golden, as it were the flower the sun
In his noon-hour most loved to look upon.
At first the pillar'd halls were still and lone,
As if some fairy palace all unknown
To mortal eye or step. This was not long;
Waken'd the lutes, and swell'd a burst of song,
And the vast mirrors glitter'd with the crowd
Of changing shapes. The young, the fair, the proud,
Came thronging in ”

“ To breathe of the home that he holds so dear;
Your gales pass by on the breath of the rose,
The vines on your sunny hills repose;
And your river is clear as its silver tide
Had no task save to mirror the flowers beside.
Thou art fair, Provence, but not fair to me
As the land which my spirit is pining to see,
Where the pine rises darkly, the lord of the wood,
Or stands lone in the pass, where the warrior has stood;
Where the torrent is rushing like youth in its might,
And the cavern is black as the slumber of night ”

“ While the spirit of beauty rejoicing has birth.
Farewell to thee, April, a gentle farewell,
Thou hast saved the young rose in its emerald cell;
Sweet nurse, thou hast mingled thy sunshine and showers,
Like kisses and tears, on thy children the flowers.
As a hope, when fulfilled, to sweet memory turns,
We shall think of thy clouds as the odorous urns,
Whence colour, and freshness, and fragrance were wept;
We shall think of thy rainbows, their promise is kept.
There is not a cloud on the morning's blue way,
And the daylight is breaking, the first of the May. ”

“ Prey'd on the heart as blight plays on the leaf.
But meeker tenderness to those around,
A soothing, sharing love, as if she found
Her happiness in theirs; more mild, more kind,
As if a holier rule were on her mind.
I cannot choose but marvel at the way
In which our lives pass on, from day to day
Learning strange lessons in the human heart,
And yet like shadows letting them depart.
Is misery so familiar that we bring
Ourselves to view it as a usual thing?
Thus is it; how regardless pass we by
The cheek to paleness worn, the heavy eye!
We do too little feel each others' pain ”

“ Till the rich crimson blush'd upon their breast,
Uniting lovingly the wave and sky,
Like Hope content in its delight to die.
A young queen with her maidens sat and sung
While ocean thousands of sweet echoes flung,
Delighted them to hear their voices blent
With music from the murmuring element.
Then cast they on the winds their radiant hair,
Then gather'd of the pink shells those most rare,
To gem their flying curls, that each might seem
A Nereid risen from the briny stream.
When sudden cried the queen, "Come, gaze with me
At what may yonder in the distance be." ”

“ Whose sweetness and whose softness call'd to mind
The perfume of the flowers, the purity
Of the blue sky; oh, how they stirr'd my soul!—
Amid the many golden gifts which heaven
Has left, like portions of its light, on earth,
None hath such influence as music hath.
The painter's hues stand visible before us
In power and beauty; we can trace the thoughts
Which are the workings of the poet's mind:
But music is a mystery, and viewless
Even when present, and is less man's act,
And less within his order ”

“ She sought the casement, lured by the soft light
Of the young moon, now rising on the night.
The cool breeze kiss'd her, and a jasmine spray
Caught in her tresses, as to woo her stay.
And there were sights and sounds that well might fling
A charmed trance on deepest suffering.
For stood the palace close on the sea shore;
Not like the northern ones, where breakers roar,
And rugged rocks and barren sands are blent,—
At once doth desolate and magnificent;
But here the beach had turf, and trees that grew
Down to the waterside, and made its blue
Mirror for their dark shapes. ”

“ Woe, woe for the warrior that dares him to strike!
Thousands and thousands are strewn on the ground,
Ahmed comes back a conqueror, but what hath he found?
The cry of the orphan is loud on his ear,
And his eye hath beheld the young bride's bitter tear,
And the friend of his youth is left dead on the plain,
And the flower of his nobles return not again.
There are crowds that are filling the air with his name;
Do ye marvel the monarch is loathing his fame?
Again to the sunshine the banners are spread;
Again rings the earth with the warriors' tread ”

“ The silver shield blood-stain'd;
But yet within the red right hand
The broken sword remain'd.
That night I watch'd beside, and kept
The hungry wolves away,
And twice the falcon's beak was dipp'd
In blood of birds of prey.
The morning rose, another step
With mine was on the plain;
A hermit, who with pious aid
Sought where life might remain.
We made De Valence there a grave,
The spot which now he prest;
For shroud, he had his blood-stain'd mail,—
Such suits the soldier best. ”

“ Where the heather is sweet as the sleep that is found
By the hunter who makes it his bed on the ground;
Where the might of the chieftain goes down to his son,
In numbers as wild as the deeds that are done;
Where the harp has notes caught from the storm and the flood,
When foemen are gathering together in blood;
Yet has others that whisper the maiden, of love,
In tones that re-echo the linnet and dove;
Where the mountain ash guards us from elfin and fay;
Where the broom, spendthrift-like, flings its gold wreath away ”

“ Whose strength seem'd in th' unequal battle done;
And praying, weeping, knelt a maiden near,
Whose piercing voice it was had reach'd his ear.
His lance flies, and one felon bites the ground;
The other turns, and turns for a death wound.
Their champion moved the rescued twain to greet,
Just one embrace, and they are at his feet.
And gazed Sir Eglamour on their strange dress,
But more on the fair dame's great loveliness;
For, saving one, to him still beauty's queen,
A face so radiant had he never seen. ”

“ And the flower of her minstrels had gather'd in France,
From far and from near; it was strange to see
The bards of Erin and Italy
Mingle together with those that came
From the highland home they so loved to name.
Hark to the sound of yon silver horn,
And the sweep of the harp to the distance borne;
‘T is the hour of meeting, and welcome now
To the gifted hand and the laurel'd brow.
Young knight, think not of hawk or hound;
Fair maiden, fling not thy smiles around;
Warrior, regard not the sword at thy side ”

“ A sudden night around; grasp'd his right hand
A spear, to which our youth's was but a wand;
Black as his shadow on the darken'd field
Was horse and armour; and his gloomy shield
Was as a cloud passing before the stars.
Eglamour set his lance; scarcely it jars
The mail'd rings of the hauberk: down he bent
In time to shun the one his foeman sent;
Wasting its strength it reach'd the lake beside,
And like a fallen tree dash'd in the tide.
Their swords are out like lightning; one whose stroke
Is as the bolt that fells the forest oak,
The other with light arm and ready wound. ”

“ And years of penance may efface this godless deed of thine."
Rough was Sir John De Coniston, and hasty in his mood,
And, soldier-like, then answer'd he, in angry speech and rude:
"I would not back although my path were lined with hostile swords,
And deem'st thou I will turn aside for only woman's words?"
She raised her voice, the curse was pass'd; and to their dying day
The sound, like thunder in their ears, will never pass away;
Still haunted them those flashing eyes, that brow of funeral stone.
When the words were said, she veil'd her face—the prioress was gone. ”

“ Hopes that lie mute in their own sullenness,
For they have quarrell'd even with themselves;
And joys indeed like birds of Paradise:
And in their stead despair coils scorpion-like
Stinging itself; and the heart, burnt and crush'd
With passion's earthquake, scorch'd and wither'd up,
Lies in its desolation,—this is love.
What is the tale that I would tell? Not one
Of strange adventure, but a common tale
Of woman's wretchedness; one to be read
Daily in many a young and blighted heart. ”

“ The maidens around thee like morning are bright,
Ten kingdoms bow down at the sound of thy name,
The lands of far countries have heard of thy fame,
The wealth of the earth, and the spoils of the seas,
Are thine; oh young Monarch, what ail'st thou, with these?"
"I'm weary, I'm weary. Oh! pleasure is pain
When its spell has been broken again and again. ”

“ To share with others those impassion'd thoughts,
Like light, or hope, or love, in their effects.
When I have watch'd the stars write on the sky
In characters of light, have seen the moon
Come like veiled priestess from the east,
While, like a hymn, the wind swell'd on mine ear,
Telling soft tidings of eve's thousand flowers,
Has it not been the transport of my lute
To find its best delight in sympathy?
Alas! the idols which our hopes set up,
They are Chaldean ones, half gold, half clay;
We trust, we are deceived, we hope, we fear,
Alike without foundation ”

“ Fierce in their beauty, with that flashing glance
Which dazzles as it were a flying lance,
Giving the sternness of a warrior's air
To what had else seem'd face almost too fair:
And, as in mockery of the helm, behind,
Like plumes, his bright curls danced upon the wind;
Curls of that tint o'er which a sunbeam flings
A thousand colours on their auburn rings.
Two days he journey'd, till he reach'd a wood,
A very dwelling-place of solitude ”

“ To meet th' accuser's never erring spear.
Her lip grows ghastly pale, closes her eye,
It cannot meet its last of agony.
But, hark! there comes a distant rushing sound,
The crowd gives way before a courser's bound.
She turns her face; her scarce raised eyes behold
The unhelm'd head shine with its curls of gold.
Sir Amice knew his rival. What! so slight,
So young, would he dare cope with him in fight?
Their blades flash out, but only one is red;
Rolls on the ground the traitor's felon head,
The dust around with his life-blood is dyed,
And Eglamour darts to his maiden's side. ”

“ Or censure, it was like the scorpion's sting.
And yet a darker lesson was to learn—
The hollowness of each: that praise, which is
But base exchange of flattery; that blame,
Given by cautious coldness, which still deems
'T is safest to depress; that mockery,
Flinging shafts but to show its own keen aim;
That carelessness, whose very censure's chance;
And, worst of all, the earthly judgment pass'd
By minds whose native clay is unredeem'd
By aught of heaven, whose every thought falls foul
Plague spot on beauty which they cannot feel,
Tainting all that it touches with itself. ”