Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

There grew ten thousand flowers, on whose leaves
Shone every hue that ever yet hath shone
In a king's diadem of Indian gems,
Or in the tints an autumn sunset throws
O'er the rich glaciers in the rainbow arch
Of the departing shower ;

I have a summer gift,
A sunny gift for thee :
See this white vase, where blooms
A beautiful rose tree.
And on its crimson leaves
Your heart must moralize,
For love a lesson takes
Of every leaf that dies.

I've thought upon thy brow when Night
Threw o'er my pallet her summer moonlight,
And I have looked on the midnight sky
To catch the depth and light of thy eye ;
I painted from these and from memory,
For I could not paint when I looked on thee.

Another soft and scented page,
Fill'd with more honied words !
What motives to a pilgrimage
A shrine like mine affords !
I know, before I break the seal,
The words that I shall find:—

We enjoy no pleasure so much as we do tormenting ourselves.

The fair face painted on the dungeon air,
By the strong force of hope, distinct and sweet,
Is a good omen. Love mine, I will rest.
If my last sleep — it will be full of thee.

It is a fearful responsibility, the exercise of influence : let our own conduct bring its own consequences — we may well meet the worst; not so when we have led another to pursue any given line of action : if they suffer, how tenfold is that suffering visited on ourselves !

'Tis strange with how much power and pride
The softness is of love allied;
How much of power to force the breast
To be in outward show at rest,—
How much of pride that never eye
May look upon its agony!
Ah! little will the lip reveal
Of all the burning heart can feel.

In sad truth, half our forebodings of our neighbours are but our own wishes, which we are ashamed to utter in any other form.

... who has not experienced, at some time or other, that words had all the relief of tears?

I always wish, in reading my favourite poets, to know what first suggested my favourite poems. Few things would be more interesting than to know under what circumstances they were composed, — how much of individual sentiment there was in each, or how, on some incident seemingly even opposed, they had contrived to ingraft their own associations. What a history of the heart would such annals reveal ! Every poem is in itself an impulse.

When will my soul forget the look
With which one single stem she took
From out the wreath ?—a tulip flower;
But, touch'd as by some withering power,
The painted leaves were drooping round
The rich but burning heart they bound.

What a strange page in human history is that of social distinction ; no people so savage but they have a sort of fashion. Even among the wild people in whose country I am now writing, there are all the small distinctions of small gentility — for example, it is not "comme il faut to wear silk."

The poets told thy birth Was welcomed upon earth By the sweet multitude of shining flowers,
By bursting buds, green leaves, and sunny hours.

THE present! it is but a drop from the sea
In the mighty depths of eternity.
I love it not—it taketh its birth
Too near to the dull and the common earth.