Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

British poet and novelist (1802–1838)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (August 14, 1802 – October 15, 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L. E. L. She was one of the richest sources of epigrams in the early nineteenth century and one reviewer compared her to Rochefoucauld. Sometimes she adopts an adversarial role, giving contradictory viewpoints. Some of her thoughts recur, either developed or refined, but over time she also threw out differing opinions on some subjects; changeability, she argues, is one of our principal traits and, as she has one character remark, truth is like the philosopher's stone, a thing not to be discovered.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Pen Names: L.E.L. • Iole

Native Name: Letitia Landon

Alternative Names: L. E. L. • Letitia Maclean • Letitia Elizabeth Maclean • Landon

From Wikidata (CC0)

And this is Love! Oh! why should woman love;
Wasting her dearest feelings, till health, hope,
Happiness, are but things of which henceforth
She'll only know the name?

It is a gem which hath the power to show
If plighted lovers keep their faith or no :
If faithful, it is like the leaves of spring ;
If faithless, like those leaves when withering.

He had a power; in his eye
There was a quenchless energy,
A spirit that could dare
The deadliest form that Death could take,
And dare it for the daring's sake.

They met with cold words, and yet colder looks:
Each was changed in himself, and yet each thought
The other only changed, himself the same.

But this is as a dream, — the plough has pass'd
Where the stag bounded, and the day has looked
On the green twilight of the forest-trees.
This Oak has no companion ! - - - -

Violets! — deep-blue violets!
April's loveliest coronets!
There are no flowers grow in the vale,
Kiss'd by the dew, wooed by the gale, —
None by the dew of the twilight wet,
So sweet as the deep-blue violet!

Oh, fame is as the moon above,
Whose sun of light and life is love.
There is more in the smile of one gentle eye
Then the thousand pages of history;
Than the loudest plaudits the crowd can raise.
Take the gems in glory's coronal,
And one smile of beauty is worth them all.—

—for earth were too like heaven,
If length of life to love were given.

Love is a pearl of purest hue,
But stormy waves are round it;
And dearly may a woman rue,
The hour that she found it.

Well may storm be on the sky,
And the waters roll on high,
When MANMADIN passes by.
Earth below and heaven above
Well may bend to thee, oh Love!

Yet one arrow has a power
Lasting till life's latest hour--
Weary day and sleepless night,
Lightning gleams of fierce delight,
Fragrant and yet poisoned sighs,
Agonies and ecstasies;
Hopes, like fires amid the gloom,
Lighting only to consume!

Pillowed on a lotus flower,
Gathered in a summer hour,
Rides he o'er the mountain wave
Which would be a tall ship's grave!
At his back his bow is slung,
Sugar-cane, with wild bees strung,—

He sung,—the notes at first were low,
Like the whispers of love, or the breathings of woe:
The waters were hushed, and the winds were stay'd,
As he sang his farewell to his Lesbian maid!

What is the light of a poet's name,
If it is not his country that hallows his fame?
Where may he look for guerdon so fair
As the honour and praise that await him there?
His name will be lost and his grave forgot,
If the tears of his country preserve them not! . . .

The lines were fill'd with many a tender thing,
All the impassion'd heart's fond communing.