Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ When all the lighted halls are fill'd with guests,
By blood or amity link'd to our house,
You shall be own'd before them as the heir;
And I will look my brother in the face,
And say, Your son is happy,—pardon me.
And now for the worst penance of my sin,—
To tell my Bertha of her father's crime.
Alas! to think that he who virtue taught,
Who fill'd her heart with piety and truth,
Should be the first to show temptation's strength;
To prove that guilt could be within the soul,
While the false words spoke moral loveliness.
JAROMIR.
But, oh! there needs not this.—
COUNT.
⁠Hush! ”

“ Lives for one touch, and only for that one.
She dwelt within the circle of her heart,
A charm'd world, lovely, lonely, and apart,
Where it had seem'd to her as sin and shame
Aught there had enter'd, not in his dear name.
—It was a spell-touch'd hour. That gorgeous hall,
With perfume floating and with music's fall,
Light steps, and gentle laugh, and whispers bland,—
Was it their words or the sweet airs that fann'd
The beauty's cheek into a redder rose?—
And starry eyes, like what the clear night shows,
But wandering ones ”

“ Long days have pass'd:—again the twilight hour
Smiles in the influence of that lovely star;
The bright laburnum's golden wealth is heap'd,
The spring's first treasure, and beneath its shade
Rests Agatha alone:—what! still alone?
A few short words will tell what change has wrought
In their once love: it is a history
That would suit half mankind. In its first spring,—
For the heart has its spring of bud and bloom
Even as has the year,—it found a home
For all its young affections, gentle thoughts,
In his true maiden's bosom ”

“ Like a deep breath comes from them.—Ah, how dark!
It is the first cloud that has touch'd the moon:—
Her loveliness has conquer'd,—oh, not yet!—
One huge cloud, and another. I could deem
The evil powers did war on high to-night.
And are there such that o'er humanity
Hold influence,—the terrible, the wild,—
Inscrutable as fear,—the ministers
To our unholy passions? These are they
Who dazzle with unrighteous wealth, and make
Our sleep temptation; they who fill its dreams
With passionate strife and guilt, until the mind
Is grown familiar with the sight of blood. ”

“ The flowers that fill'd seem'd of themselves a part;
A sandal lute lay on an inlaid stand,
Whose rich wrought ivory spoke its Indian land;
Shells of bright colours, foreign toys of gold,
And crystals wrought in many a curious mould;
Pictures, a prince's ransom in their worth;
Small alabaster statues—all that earth
Has rich or varied, all that wealth could buy,
Loathing she turn'd. "Yet what a wretch am I!
This must not be!—stain'd cheek and fever'd brow
Too much the secret of my soul avow. ”

“ Whispering those gentle words so sweet to hear,
And answer'd by flush'd cheek, and downcast eye,
And roselip parted, with half smile, half sigh.
Young, loving, and beloved,—these are brief words,
And yet they touch on all the finer chords,
Whose music is our happiness: the tone
May die away and be no longer known
In the harsh wisdom brought by after years,
Lost in that worldliness which scars and sears,
And makes the misery of life's troubled scene;—
Still it is much to think that it has been. ”

“ Eyes glittering first with tears, and then with light,
And blue, too glad to be the violet's blue,
But that which hangs upon it, lucid dew,—
Its first clear moment, ere the sun has burst
The azure radiance which it kindled first;—
A cheek of thousand blushes; golden hair,
As if the summer sunshine made it fair;
A voice of music, and such touching smile,
Amenaïde sigh'd, "Well might they beguile!"
—Love, what a mystery thou art!—how strange
Thy constancy, yet still more so thy change!
How the same love, born in the self-same hour,
Holds over different hearts such different power ”

“ He sleeps,—where blood has been pour'd like rain,
Another field before him;
And he sleeps as calm as his mother's eyes
Were watching o'er him.
To-morrow that youthful victor's name
Will be proudly given,
By the trumpet's voice, and the soldier's shout,
To the winds of heaven.
Yet life, how pitiful and how mean,
Thy noblest story;
When the high excitement of victory,
The fulness of glory,
Nor the sorrow felt for the friend of his youth,
Whose corpse he's keeping,
Can give his human weakness force
To keep from sleeping! ”

“ Was ready with gay converse,—that light mirth
Which like the meteor has from darkness birth:
She watch'd her circle,—ready smile or sneer,—
Sneers for the absent ones, smiles for the near,
Till every other hall sent forth its tide,
And half the guests were gather'd at her side.
It was an evil feeling that which now
Flush'd on her cheek, and lighted up her brow—
Part bitterness, part vanity, part woe—
The passionate strife which pride and misery know;
A burning wish to wake a vain regret
In that false one, who now had best forget ”

“ The flowers were full of song:—upon the rose
I read the crimson annals of true love;
The violet flung me back on old romance;
All was association with some link
Whose fine electric throb was in the mind.
I paid my price for this—'twas happiness.
My wings have melted in their eager flight,
And gleams of heaven have only made me feel
Its distance from our earth more forcibly.
My feelings grow less fresh, my thoughts less kind:
My youth has been too lonely, too much left
To struggle for itself; and this world is
A northern clime, where ev'ry thing is chill'd. ”

“ Her hair was parted on her brow, each braid
Black as the dark-wing'd raven's darkest shade,
And gather'd up with diamonds,—few there were—
Just stars to light the midnight of her hair.
Well did the sweeping robe of emerald green,
Wrought in rich gold, suit with her stately mien.
"How beautiful she looks this evening!" burst
From every lip, when that fair Countess first
Enter'd Arezzi's hall: her heart's content
To every lighted look its lustre lent.
Her beauty's fault had been, it was too cold;
Features too tranquil in their perfect mould,
A cheek somewhat too pale ”

“ The hope of immortality!—that hope,
Whose altar is the grave, whose sacrifice
Is life—bright, beautiful, and breathing life.
He stands amid the revellers with a joy,
A scarcely conscious joy, in their delight;
In it he has no part,—he stands alone;
But the deep music haunts his dreaming ear,—
But the fair forms flit o'er his dreaming eye,—
And exquisite illusions fill his soul
With loveliness to pour in future song. ”

“ Where a young maiden leant, and pour'd her soul,
In those last words, the bitter and the brief.
How can they say confiding is relief?
Light are the woes that to the eyelids spring,
Subdued and soften'd by the tears they bring;
But there are some too long, too well conceal'd,
Too deeply felt,—that are but once reveal'd:
Like the withdrawing of the mortal dart,
And then the life-blood follows from the heart ”

“ There are remembrances that will not vanish,—
Thoughts of the past we would but cannot banish:
As if to show how impotent mere will,
We loathe the pang, and yet must suffer still:
For who is there can say they will forget?
—It is a power no science teaches yet.
Oh love, how sacred thy least words should be,
When on them hangs such abject misery!
VIII.
The fountain's music murmur'd through the grove,
Like the first plaint that sorrow teaches love;
The orange boughs shut out the sultry sky,
While their rich scent, as pass'd the Countess by,
Came homage like. ”

“ Mine never knew. This is an empty wish;
Our feelings are not fires to light at will
Our nature's fine and subtle mysteries;
We may control them, but may not create,
And love less than its fellows. I have fed
Perhaps too much upon the lotos fruits
Imagination yields,—fruits which unfit
The palate for the more substantial food
Of our own land—reality. I made
My heart too like a temple for a home;
My thoughts were birds of paradise, that breathed
The airs of heaven, but died on touching earth. ”

“ Like natural lutes, from whispering green leaves;
The low peculiar murmur of the pines:
From pictured saints, that look their native heaven—
Statues whose grace is a familiar thing;
The ruin'd shrine of mournful loveliness;
The stately church, awfully beautiful;
Their climate, and their language, whose least word
Is melody—these overfill the heart
Till, fountain-like, the lips o'erflow with song,
And music is to them an element. ”

“ Which lingers round first passion's sepulchre.
—Why do I say first love?—there is no second.
Who asks in the same year a second growth
Of spring leaves from the tree, corn from the field?—
They are exhausted. Thus 'tis with the heart:—
'Tis not so rich in feeling or in hope
To bear that one be crush'd, the other faded,
Yet find them ready to put forth again.
It does not always last; man's temper is
Often forgetful, fickle, and throws down
The temple he can never build again ”

“ Save that red flushes came at each light sound,
While the wild eyes glanced fearfully around;
But still she moved not, spoke not,—such distress
Seeks no distraction from its wretchedness.
There rose loud voices in the outer hall:—
She nerves her with despair, she will know all:
Her ear, acute with agony, can hear
A name at once so dreaded and so dear:—
"Yes, Lady, he is guilty!—" but no more:—
They raise her senseless from the marble floor. ”

“ How the same feeling lighted in the breast
Makes one so wretched, and makes one so blest;
How one will keep the dream of passion born
In youth with all the freshness of its morn;
How from another will thine image fade!
Far deeper records on the sand are made.
—Why hast thou separate being? why not die
At once in both, and not leave one to sigh,
To weep, to rave, to struggle with the chains
Pride would fling off, but memory retains? ”

“ While pass'd a cloud across her deep blue eyes:
"Are ye not symbols of me, ye fair flowers?
Thus in mere recklessness my wilful hand
Has wasted the whole beauty of a spring,
And I have thrown your fragrant lives away
In one vain moment's idleness." 'Tis strange
How the heart, overpress'd with its own thoughts,—
And what oppresses the young heart like love?—
Grows superstitious, finds similitudes
And boding fears in every change and chance. ”

“ Wreaths—O what mockeries!—hung from the bier;
And there, pale, beautiful, as if in sleep,
Her dark hair braided graceful with white flowers,
She lay,—his own beloved one!
No more, no more!—love, turn thy boat to land,—
I am so sorrowful at my own words.
Affection is an awful thing!—Alas!
We give our destiny from our own hands,
And trust to those most frail of all frail things,
The chances of humanity.
—The wind hath a deep sound, more stern than sweet ”

“ Her large blue eyes are raised up to the heav'ns,
Whose hues they wear, and seem to grow more clear
As the heart fills them. There, those parted lips,—
Prayer could but give such voiceless eloquence,—
Shining like snow her clasp'd and earnest hands,
She seems a dedicated nun, whose heart
Is God's own altar. By her side I feel
As in some holy place. My best love, mine,
Blessings must fall on one like thee!
SCENE V.—Bertha in her Room. ”

“ He brought it here!—O Bertha, kneel and pray!—
The shadowy likeness, when the actual shape
Is distant far; the dream whose prophecy
Comes when we waken terribly distinct;
The shriek the grave sends up in the still night,
Are not such deadly omens as that face.
My young, my good, my fair, what hath that curse
That is upon thine house to do with thee?
BERTHA.
What do you mean? ”

“ Like the falcon's when flying his highest mark.
And telling a tale of gallant war,
On his brow was a slight but glorious scar.
His voice had that low and lute-like sound,
Whose echo within the heart is found.
His very faults were those that win
Too dazzling and ready an entrance in.
Daring, and fiery, wild to range,
Reckless of what might ensue from the change;
Too eager for pleasures to fill up the void,
Till the very impatience their nature destroy'd ”

“ Makes fertile its rich banks, and glads the face
Of nature round; but not so when its wave
Is lost in artificial waterfalls,
And sparkling eddies; or coop'd up to make
The useless fountain of a palace hall.
—One day I spoke of this; her eager soul
Was in its most unearthly element.
We had been speaking of the immortal dead.
The light flash'd in her eyes. "'Tis this which makes
The best assurance of our promised heaven:
This triumph intellect has over death—
Our words yet live on others' lips; our thoughts
Actuate others. ”

“ She sought the alcove where the fountain play'd,
And wash'd from lip and cheek their crimson shade;
And bathed her long hair, till its glossy curls
Wore not a trace but of the dewy pearls
The waters left, as if in pity shed;
She loosed the bolt, and sought her silken bed;
But easier far had been the rack, the wheel:—
When hath the body felt what mind can feel?
VII. [1]
The weary day pass'd on—night came again:—
Amenaïde has join'd the glittering train;
Self-torturer—self-deceiver—cold and high,
She said it was to mock the curious eye.
Such strength is weakness. ”