A louder sweep the music gave :
The chieftain of the charmed wave,
Graceful upon his steed of snow,
Rises from his blue halls below ;
And rode he lik… - Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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A louder sweep the music gave : The chieftain of the charmed wave, Graceful upon his steed of snow, Rises from his blue halls below ; And rode he like a victor-knight Thrice glorious in his arms of light.
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.
There is a deep impression of awe produced by such a vast but silent crowd ; we are at once conscious that the cause is terrible which can induce the unusual stillness. The issue of a trial on which hangs life or death, is indeed an appalling thing. We know that men are about to take away that which they cannot give—that a few words of human breath will deprive of breath one of the number for ever ; and though we acknowledge that in this evil world punishment is the only security against crime, and that blood for blood has been a necessity from the beginning of time ; still, we feel that the necessity is a dreadful one.
The history of most fictions would be far stranger than the fictions themselves ; but it would be a dark and sad chronicle. Half the works that constitute the charm of our leisure, that give their own interest to the long November evening, or add to the charm of a summer noon beneath the greenwood tree, are the offspring of poverty and of pain. ... How often is the writer obliged to put his own trouble, his suffering, or his sorrow aside, to finish the task ! The hand may tremble, the eyes fill with unbidden tears, and the temples throb with feverish pain, yet how often is there some hard and harsh necessity, which says, "the work must be done.”
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 !
