Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Earth Quotes

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THE Moon is sailing o'er the sky,
But lonely all, as if she pined
For somewhat of companionship,
And felt it was in vain she shined:
Earth is her mirror, and the stars
Are as the court around her throne;
She is a beauty and a queen;
But what is this? she is alone.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Glory of earth, and light from heaven,
Young Genius ! but for thee,
And the wild wonders to thee given,
How base our earth would be !

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
To this fine spirit our earth owes her greatest:
For the future is purchased by scorning the present,
And life is redeemed from its clay soil by fame.
* King, not a vestige remains of your palaces;
Conqueror, forgotten the fame of your battles:
But the Poet yet lives in the sweetness of music—
He appeal'd to the heart, that never forgets.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Love's gifts are like the vein of gold
That intersects earth's darker mould;
The gold is gained, the coin is wrought;
But how much trouble has it brought?

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

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
True love is timid, as it knew its worth,
And that such happiness is scarce for earth.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Where on earth is the truth that may vie
With woman's lone and long constancy?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The peasant boy, who followed the coloured track of the rainbow, hoping to find the blue and charmed flower which springs where the arch touches earth, is wiser far than one who gives youth, genius, and time to literature.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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.

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
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;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
[Alvine] 'Tis one of those bright fictions that have made
The name of Greece only another word
For love and poetry ; with a green earth—
Groves of the graceful myrtle — summer skies,
Whose stars are mirror'd in ten thousand streams—
Winds that move but in perfume and in music,
And, more than all, the gift of woman's beauty.
What marvel that the earth, the sky, the sea,
Were filled with all those fine imaginings
That love creates, and that the lyre preserves !

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Happiness ! pleasure I should rather say,
Happiness never made on earth a stay —

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
God ! that this Earth should be so beautiful,
And yet so wretched !

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Sweet Pauline, could I buy thee
With gold or its worth,
I would not deny thee
The wealth of the earth.
They talk of the pleasure
That riches bestow —
Without thee, my treasure,
What joy could I know ?

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
O Earth ! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never
Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers;
And hast thou then no pity for mankind ?
Can thy maternal breast receive again
Their dust, and yet not throb ?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Harsh all earth's destinies, — but his most hard
Who may not trust the praise he loves to hear —
Who may not hold his fame sure till, too late,
The seal of death and truth is set by fate.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And round the walls were Pictures : some calm scenes
Of Earth's green loveliness, and some whose hues
Were caught from faces in whose smile our life
Is one of Paradise ; and Statues, whose white grace
Is as a dream of poetry.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Spirit of the midnight dream,
What is now upon thy wing ?
Earth sleeps in the moonlight beam ;
O'er that sleep what wilt thou fling ?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Youth is too eager, forth it flings
Itself upon exulting wings,
Which seek the heaven they ask too near—
One wild flight ends the bright career;
With broken wing and darkened eye,
Earth claims again its own to die.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Ah! it is well we can forget,
Or who could linger on
Beneath a sky whose stars are set,
On earth whose flowers are gone?
For who could welcome loved ones near,
Thinking of those once far more dear,

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
In sooth, this earth is a lovely place;
Pass not in darkness over her face;
Yet call back thy words of doom—
They are too gay and too fair for the tomb.
....
And have seen—alas! 'tis but outward show—
The sunshine of yon green earth below:
Glad of rest must the wretched and way-worn be—
Angel of Death, they are ready for thee!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The cold north wind which bows to earth
The lightness of the willow's birth
Bends not the mountain cedar trees;
Folding their branches from the breeze,
They stand as if they could defy
The utmost rage of storm and sky.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Happiness is not for this world — a conviction that cannot be too soon acquired : it will destroy a thousand vain expectations, dissipate the most perplexing of our illusions — the early knowledge that life is but a trial, whose triumph is hereafter, and this earth a place appointed for that sorrow and patient endurance which is gradually fitting us for a better and a happier state.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
'Tis May again, another May,
Looking as if it meant to stay ;
So many are its thousand flowers,
So glorious are its sunny hours,
So green its earth, so blue its sky,
As made for Hope's eternity.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
THE present! it is but a drop from the sea
In the mighty depths of eternity.
I love it not—it taketh its birth
Too near to the dull and the common earth.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Of all the months that fill the year
Give April's month to me,
For earth and sky are then so filled
With sweet variety !

Letitia Elizabeth Landon