Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Day Quotes

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That which is always within our reach, is always the last thing we take; and the chances are, that what we can do every day, we never do at all.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Look on yon child, it droops the head,
Its knees are bow'd with pain;
It mutters from its wretched bed,
"Oh, let me sleep again!"
Alas! 'tis time, the mother's eyes
Turn mournfully away;
Alas! 'tis time, the child must rise,
And yet it is not day.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Out upon the folly which, in estimating human misery, allows aught to bear comparison with the agony of the poor ! I use the word poor relatively; I call not those poor to whom honesty brings self-respect, whose habits and whose means have gone together, and whose industry is its own support. But those are the poor whose exertion supplies not their wants—to whom cold, hunger, and weariness, are common feelings ; who have known better days—to whom the past furnishes contrast, and the future fear.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
They say that, hung in ancient halls,
At midnight from the silent lute
A melancholy music falls
From chords which were by daylight mute.
And so the human heart by night
Is touched by some inspired tone,
Harmonious in the deep delight,
By day it knew not was its own.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
That day the youth was told the tale,
How she had pined beneath the veil
And died, and then they show'd her grave—
He knew that cypress's green wave. —
That night, alone, he watched his bride —
The next they laid him by her side.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
'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.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
A London day requires to be well aired before it is ventured into.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The day is past, and the moonbeams weep
O'er the many that rest in their last cold sleep;
Near to the gashed and the nerveless hand
Is the pointless spear and the broken brand;
The archer lies like an arrow spent,
His shafts all loose and his bow unbent;
Many a white plume torn and red,
Bright curls rent from the graceful head,
Helmet and breast-plate scattered around,
Lie a fearful show on the well-fought ground;
While the crow and the raven flock overhead
To feed on the hearts of the helpless dead,
Save when scared by the glaring eye
Of some wretch in his last death agony.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The dream on the pillow,
That flits with the day,
The leaf of the willow
A breath wears away;
The dust on the blossom,
The spray on the sea;
Ay,—ask thine own bosom—
Are emblems of thee.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I cannot choose but marvel at the way
In which our lives pass on, from day to day
Learning strange lessons in the human heart,
And yet like shadows letting them depart.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Blush'd the first blush of coming day,
Faded the fairy band away.
They pass'd and only left behind
A lingering fragrance on the wind,
And on the lake, their haunted home,
One long white wreath of silver foam.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The loorie brought to his cinnamon nest.
The bee from the midst of its honey quest,
And open the leaves of the lotus lay
To welcome the noon of the summer day.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Beautiful and radiant May,
Is not this thy festal day ?
Is not this spring revelry
Held in honour, Queen, of thee ?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The present! it sinketh with sorrow and care,
That but for the future, it never could bear;
We dwell in its shadow, we see by its light,
And to-day trusts to-morrow, it then will be bright.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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 ! - - - -

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
How sweet on the breeze of the evening swells
The vesper call of those soothing bells,
Borne softly and dying in echoes away,
Like a requiem sung to the parting day.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Never day-beam hath shone o'er
Lovelier or wilder shore !
Half was land, and half was sea
Where the eye could only see
The blue sky for boundary.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
TO-MORROW, to-morrow, thou loveliest May,
To-morrow will rise up thy first-born day;
Bride of the summer, child of the spring,
To-morrow the year will its favourite bring:

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Up climb'd the sweet pea,
The butterfly of flowers:—I love it not,
Though every hue—and it has many tints—
Are dyed as if the sunset evening clouds
Had fallen to the earth in sudden rain,
And left their colours : purple, delicate pink,
And snowy white, are on thy wing-like leaves;
But thou art all too forward in thy bloom ;
Thy blossoms are the sun's, and cling to all
That can support them into open day:
And then they die, leaving no root behind,
The hope and promise of another spring;
And no perfume, whose lingering gratitude
Remains round what upheld its summer's life.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Toil is the portion of day, as sleep is that of night; but if there be one hour of the twenty-four which has the life of day without its labor, and the rest of night without its slumber, it is the lovely and languid hour of twilight.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh, weary day that seemed so long!
Oh, hours that dragged their weight along!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
But these days
Of visible poetry have long been past!—
No fear that the young hunter may profane
The haunt of some immortal;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Truly, night was made for sleep; since to its wakeful hours belongs an oppression unknown to the very dreariest hours of day. The stillness is so deep, the solitude so unbroken, the fever brought on by want of rest so weakens the nerves, that the imagination exercises despotic and unwholesome power, till, if the heart have a fear or a sorrow, up it arises in all the force and terror of gigantic exaggeration.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Curious it is that every hour of our day is repeated from myriad chimes; and yet how rarely do we attend to the clock striking! Alas! how emblematic is this of the way in which we neglect the many signs of time! How terrible, when we think of what time may achieve, is the manner in which we waste it! At the end of every man's life, at least three-quarters of the mighty element of which that life was composed will be found void—lost—nay, utterly forgotten! And yet that time, laboured and husbanded, might have built palaces, gathered wealth, and, still greater, made an imperishable name.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And o'er them lowers destruction, high in air,
Upon those jutting crags, whose rugged sides,
Riven in fragments, and like ruins pil'd,
Seem as that giants of those ancient days
When earthborn creatures braved th' Olympic Gods,
Those of whom fable tells, had torn away
Rocks from their solid base, and with strong arm,
Parted the mountains: there the avalanche hangs,
Mighty, but tremulous; just a light breath
Will loosen it from off its airy throne;
Then down it hurls in wrath, like to the sound
Of thunder amid storms, or as the voice
Of rushing waters—death in its career.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
To hide the wells from the beam of the sun,
She took the webs of silvery white
Herself had wove in the lone moonlight,
And threw them o'er, so that not one ray
Could lighten their depths with a glimpse of day;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Not that we would detract one iota from the benevolence which does exist in humanity ; there is both more gratitude and more cause for gratitude than it is the fashion now-a-days to admit: but this we do say, that the obligation is never from those on whom we have a claim. Kindness is always unexpected; and overcomes us like a summer cloud," exciting our "special wonder" as well as thankfulness.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
It is a fact not to be disputed, that the aristocracy have not "progressed " in proportion to the other classes. A young nobleman of the present day has not a better education than his ancestor in the time of Elizabeth.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
O beauty of the midnight skies!
O mystery of each distant star !
O dreaming hours, whose magic lies
In rest and calm, with Day afar!
Thanks for the higher moods that wake
Our thoughtful and immortal part !—
Out on our life, could we not make
A spiritual temple of the heart ?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon