Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

It is most sad to watch the fall
Of autumn leaves!--but worst of all
It is to watch the flower of spring
Faded in its fresh blossoming!

There are a thousand fanciful things
Linked round the young heart's imaginings.
In its first love-dream, a leaf or a flower
Is gifted then with a spell and a power:
A shade is an omen, a dream is a sign,
From which the maiden can well divine
Passion's whole history.

It was my evil star above,
Not my sweet lute, that wrought me wrong;
It was not song that taught me love,
But it was love that taught me song.

But Love's bright fount is never pure;
And all his pilgrims must endure
All passion's mighty suffering
Ere they may reach the blessed spring.

My power was but a woman's power;
Yet, in that great and glorious dower
Which Genius gives, I had my part:
I poured my full and burning heart

Statues but known from shapes of the earth,
By being too lovely for mortal birth;
Paintings whose colours of life were caught
From the fairy tints in the rainbow wrought;
Music whose sighs had a spell like those
That float on the sea at the evening's close
Language so silvery, that every word
Was like the lute's awakening chord;

I am a daughter of that land,
Where the poet's lip and the painter's hand
Are most divine, —where the earth and sky,
Are picture both and poetry—
I am of Florence.

And you, my fine poet, who thought that the earth
To another such minstrel could never give birth,
Already your works are all thrown on the shelf,
And their author condemn'd as an ignorant elf.—
Yes ; look thro' the world, and this truth you will find
That, once out of sight, you are soon out of mind.

You may smile at the fanciful structures I rear,
And say, that my castles are built but on sand ;
Like bubbles, that on the blue waters appear,
That sparkle, invite, and then sink from the hand.

I Give thee, love, a blooming braid;
I cull'd it at eve's 'witching hour ;
I twin'd it in the moon's sweet shade,
When starlight dew was on each flower.

How innocent, how beautiful thy sleep ! Sweet one, 'tis peace and joy to gaze on thee!

Thou, Poetry, in absence wert a chain,
Binding our hearts together: where so well
As in thy numbers, could I pour my soul,
In soothing tenderness? 'twas bliss, to make
Thought visible to those of whom I thought.

... Oh! burning are the drops
That wounded love will shed—like to the dew
Falling from off the poison tree, the blight
Still following the touch ;—ah ! other tears
Soften and bless—but these destroy the heart.

'Tis soothing, oh ! most soothing to the heart,
To rove 'mid scenes where once we have been blest!
Each tree, each blossom, has a thrilling charm;
They seem memorials of those happier hours :
The very sigh that tells they are no more,
Is sweet unto the spirit; former days,
And former feelings, rise upon the soul,
Dear as they once have been.

The leaves were gone from all, save where the pine
Threw the wide shadow of its unchang'd green.
I could not envy it that fadeless state.—
Ah ! who would be the last, the only one
That ruin spares—no ; if the blight must pass
O'er all around, let it pass o'er me too !