Letitia Elizabeth Landon quotes - page 9
One of the loveliest daughters of that land,
Divinest Greece! that taught the painter's hand
To give eternity to loveliness;
One of those dark-eyed maids, to whom belong
The glory and the beauty of each Song
Thy poets breathed, for it was theirs to bless
With life the pencil and the lyre's dreams,
Giving reality to visioned gleams
Of bright divinities.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
If the wind murmurs then they seem to hear
His voice; and when night falls, the shadows round
Seem the dark foldings of his sweeping robe.
At noon, when life sees only the clear sky,
Feels only the bright sun, the fated one
Whom Death hath called, upon the distance marks
The heavy shade so soon to shroud
All nature from their eyes.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The hope that clings to the least glimpse of blue
Amid a sky of murkiness; the fear
That sickens at itself; the fond deceit,
That will not see the truth; the tenderness,
That only asks to trust; and, at the last,
The knowledge we have known in vain so long
Comes like a thunderbolt, and crashes.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
If blasted hopes and ruin'd name,
And all the venom Love lends Shame -
The violent death, and rabble eye,
To look upon its agony;
If these are not enough to win
A pardon for Earth's deadliest sin,
Words will not, cannot! - never dare
Tell me it may be won by prayer!
The coward prayer, the coward tear,
Not from remorse wrung, but from fear!
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I will not seek the battle-field -
The men I there should meet,
What have they done to me to make
Shedding their life-blood sweet?
It is the veriest madness man
In maddest mood can frame,
To feed the earth with human gore,
And then to call it fame.
I have been wrong'd; but were my wrong
The deadliest wrong ere done,
I would not slay my enemy,
But bid him still live on :-
And I should deem my vengeance more
Than the death-wound in strife-
What ills can death inflict like those
Heap'd on each hour of life?
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Free, thou sayest,-dream'st thou how?
Loathing wouldst thou shun dismay'd
Freedom by such ransom paid.
-Girl, for thee I'll lay aside
Veil of smiles and mask of pride;
Shrowds that only ask of Fate
Not to seem so desolate.
-I am young,-but Age's snow
Hides not colder depths below ...
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
... what could have brought him to Dalton. There were no chalybeate-springs, warranted to cure every disease under the sun; no ruins in the neighbourhood, left expressly for antiquarians and pic-nic parties; no fine prospects, which, like music, people make it matter of conscience to admire; no celebrated person had ever been born or buried in its environs; there were no races, no assizes-in short, there was "no nothing."
Letitia Elizabeth Landon