Works By Letitia Elizabeth Landon

"One half of our existence is a blank; A mighty empire hath forgetfulness ! History is but a page in the great past, So few amid Time’s records are unsealed."

"Morning, and flowers; green grass, and aged trees— All that can soothe, and calm, and purify, E’en ’mid a busy wilderness of streets."

"Had life no mystery, and no hope, Oh ! who could bear to live !"

"There’s more for thought in one brief hour In yonder busy street, Than all that ever leaf or flower Taught in their green retreat."

"Change, change, wondrous change, Mighty is thy power, and strange ; Summer sleeps beneath the snow, Fading follows autumn’s glow : Time, what has its chronicle, But of thee and thine to tell ?"

"I give it up in pure despair; But well the muse may turn refractory, When all her inspiration is— A Chinese Town, and an English Factory."

"Never more, when the day is o’er, Will the lonely vespers sound ; No bells are ringing—no monks are singing, When the moonlight falls around."

"Whene'er a person is a poet, No matter what the pang may be; Does not at once the public know it ? Witness each newspaper we see."

"The grave has its vengeance—the dead have their power In the terrible silence of midnight’s dark hour, When each shade is a spectre—and winds have a tone, To the ear of the innocent sleeper unknown ; When the visions ascend from the depths of the tomb, And strange shadows flit thro’ the spectral room."

"It is a glorious thing for man to war With time, by some great work. Wherefore was skill, And energy, and industry, bestowed, If that he use them not ?"

"Of all soils, a literary one is the soonest exhausted, and a change of subjects is as much needed as a change of crops."

"And the cold justice still awarded By time, which makes all lots the same. Slayer or slain, it matters not, We struggle, perish, are forgot!"

"Mine be that consciousness of life Which has its energies from strife, Which lives its utmost, knows its power, Claims from the mind its utmost dower—"

"Ah! never is that cherished face Banished from its accustomed place— It shines upon my weariest night It leads me on in thickest fight: All that seems most opposed to be Is yet associate with thee— Together life and thee depart, Dream—idol—treasure of my heart."

"The heart which on itself hath turned, Worn out with feelings—slighted—spurned— Till scarce one throb remained to show What warm emotions slept below, Never to be renewed again, And known but by remembered pain."

"Ah, only those who rarely know Kind words, can tell how sweet they seem. Great God, that there are those below To whom such words are like a dream."

"And still more hopeless than when last she on their camp looked down, The foeman’s gathered numbers close round the devoted town: And daily in that fatal trench her chosen soldiers fall, And spread themselves, a rampart vain, around that ruined wall. Her eyes upon her city turn—alas! what can they meet, But famine, and despair, and death, in every lonely street?"

"One word there came from her white lips, one word, she spoke no more; But that word was for life and death, the young queen named—the Jojr."

"She bounds o’er the soft grass, half woman half child, As gay as her antelope, almost as wild. The bloom of her cheek is like that on her years; She has never known pain, she has never known tears, And thought has no grief, and no fear to impart; The shadow of Eden is yet on her heart."

"Proud, beautiful, fierce; while she gazes, the tone Of those high murky features grows almost her own; And the blood of her race rushes dark to her brow, The spirit of heroes has entered her now."

"Oh sun, how glad thy rays are shed; How canst thou glory o’er the dead? Ah, folly this of human pride, What are the dead to one like thee, Whose mirror is the mighty tide, Where time flows to eternity? A single race, a single age, What are they in thy pilgrimage?"

"The Ganges’ quiet waves are rolled In one broad sheet of molten gold; And in the tufted brakes beside, The water-fowls and herons hide. And the still earth might also seem The strange creation of a dream."

"O ! glorious triumph, thus to sway at will All feelings in our nature ; thus to work The springs of sympathy, the mines of thought, And all the deep emotions of the heart."

"I know not how it acts on other minds, But this I know, my most enchanted world Is hidden when the curtain falls, and leaves Remembrance only of its gorgeous dreams And beautiful creations."

"Now, a love match is like that childish toy which consists of various boxes enclosed one within another, and yet contains nothing, after all."

"I wonder where Experience got its reputation ? — it has been very easily obtained — but it does not deserve it : they say, that it teaches fools ; it may teach them, but they do not learn."

"A strain of music like the rushing wind, But deep and sweet As when the waters meet, In one mysterious harmony combined. So swells the mighty organ, rich and full, As if it were the soul Which raised the glorious whole, Of that fair building vast and wonderful."

"People ought to be grateful : I have done a great deal for the poets ; is there not one among them to do something for me ? I entreat them to recollect that I have read them, which is a great deal ; I have bought them, which is still more ; and I have reduced their theory to practice, which is most of all. They owe me a recompense, and I have a plan in my head. I want one of them to come and commit suicide in my garden, and leave a paper behind requesting to be interred in that very spot. He might assign any reason his imagination suggested, and I would take care that religious attention should be paid to his last wish ; indeed, it is for that I desire his death."

"’Tis the worst curse, on this our social world, Fortune’s perpetual presence—wealth, which now Is like life’s paramount necessity."

"It is a glorious task to seek, Where misery droops the patient head : Where tears are on the widow’s cheek, Where weeps the mourner o’er the dead."

"The poet’s lovely faith creates The beauty it believes The light which on his footstep waits He from himself receives."

"Fair Paris caught the crimson hue — Well may I call it fair. With its pure heaven of softest blue. Its clear and sunny air — Soft fell the morning o’er each dome That rises mid the sky ; And, conscious of the day to come, Demand their place on high."

"How little is the happiness That will content a child— A favourite dog, a sunny fruit, A blossom growing wild. A word will fill the little heart With pleasure and with pride ; It is a harsh, a cruel thing, That such can be denied."

"How much they suffer from our faults ! How much from our mistakes ! How often, too, mistaken zeal An infant’s misery makes ! We overrule, and overteach, We curb and we confine, And put the heart to school too soon, To learn our narrow line."

"Abel the victim—Cain the homicide, Were type and prophecy Of times that were to be, Thus reddened from the first life’s troubled tide."

"Fall, fall, ye mighty temples to the ground ; Not in your sculptured rise In the real exercise Of human nature's highest power found. ’Tis in the lofty hope, the daily toil, ’Tis in the gifted line, In each far thought divine, That brings down heaven to light our common soil. ’Tis in the great, the lovely, and the true, ’Tis in the generous thought, Of all that man has wrought, Of all that yet remains for man to do."

"I have a steed, to leave behind The wild bird, and the wilder wind : I have a sword, which does not know How to waste a second blow : I have a matchlock, whose red breath Bears the lightning’s sudden death ; I have a foot of fiery flight, I have an eye that cleaves the night. I win my portion in the land By my high heart and strong right hand."

"—the past, which is Imagination’s own gigantic realm."

"Now, doth not summer’s sunny smile Sink soft o’er that Ionian isle, While round the kindling waters sweep The murmur'd music of the deep, The many melodies that swell From breaking wave and red-lipp’d shell ?"

"Go through that city, and behold What intellect can yield, How it brings forth an hundred-fold From time’s enduring field. Those walls are filled with wealth, the spoil Of industry and thought, The mighty harvest which man’s toil Out of the past has wrought."

"Then sounds arise, the echoes bear along Through the resounding aisles the choral song. The billowy music of the organ sweeps, Like the vast anthem of uplifted deeps ; The bells ring forth—the long dark night is done, The sunshine of the Sabbath is begun."

"Cold and obscure, in vain the king and sage Gave law and learning to the darkened age. There was no present faith, no future hope, Earth bounded then the earth-drawn horoscope ;"

"But decay—the pulses tremble When its livid signs appear : When the once-loved lips resemble All we loathe, and all we fear. Is it not a ghastly ending For the body’s godlike form, Thus to the damp earth descending, Food and triumph to the worm ?"

"What know we of them ? Nothing—there they stand, Gloomy as night, inscrutible as fate."

"Why did she love her mother’s so? It hath wrought her wondrous wo."

"The stately stranger’s head was bound With a bright and golden round; Curiously inlaid, each scale Shone upon his glittering mail;"

"Easy ’tis advice to give, Hard it is advice to take Years that lived—and years to live, Wide and weary difference make."

"Still illusion’s purple light Was upon the morning tide, And there rose before her sight The loveliness of life untried. Three sweet genii, —Youth, Love, Hope, — Drew her future horoscope. Must such lights themselves consume? Must she be her own dark tomb?"

"By the love that makes thee mine I am deeply, dearly thine. But a spell is on me thrown, Six days may each deed be shown. But the seventh day must be Mine, and only known to me. Never must thy step intrude On its silent solitude."

"It is the minstrel’s part to fling Around the present’s common cope, The solemn hues on Memory’s wing, The spiritual light of Hope. The scene that to a careless eye Seems nothing but itself to be, Has charmed earth and haunted sky — Seen as the minstrel’s eye can see. Himself is but an instrument Inspired by that diviner hour, When first Imagination lent To earth its passion and its power."