Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Hope Quotes

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How noble and ennobling!—but within
How mean, how poor, how pitiful, how mix'd
With base alloy; how Disappointment tracks
The steps of Hope; how Envy dogs success;
How every victor's crown is lined with thorns,
And worn mid scoffs!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Awakening hope has named the name
Of love, or blown its spark to flame.
Restlessness, but as the winds range
From leaf to leaf, from flower to flower;
Changefulness, but as rainbows change,
From colour'd sky to sunlit hour.
Ay, well indeed may minstrel sing,—
What have the heart and year like spring?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
And here at length is somewhat of revenge:
For man's most golden dreams of pride and power
Are vain as any woman-dreams of love;
Both end in weary brow and wither'd heart,
And the grave closes over those whose hopes
Have lain there long before.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
THE fountain's low singing is heard on the wind,
Like a melody bringing sweet fancies to mind;
Some to grieve, some to gladden: around them they cast
The hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past.
Away in the distance is heard the vast sound,
From the streets of the city that compass it round,
Like the echo of mountains, or ocean's deep call;
Yet that fountain's low singing is heard over all.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh, blessedness !
To see the fair creations of the thought
Assume a visible form ; sweet Poesy !
How witching is thy power upon the heart ;
Enchantment that does bind our senses up
In one unutterable influence ;
A charmed spell set over every thought,
Till life's whole hope is cast upon the lyre.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Now
I have no hope that does not dream for thee;
I have no joy that is not shared by thee;
I have no fear that does not dread for thee.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Hope, frail but lovely shadow ! thou dost come,
Like a bright vision on our pathway here,
Making the gloomy future beautiful,
And gilding our horizon with a light,
The fairest human eye can ever know.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Youth, balancing itself upon hope, is forever in extremes: its expectations are continually aroused only to be baffled, and disappointment, like a summer shower, is violent in proportion to its brevity.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The path was new, and there was thrown
A sweet veil over pleasure's ray ;
But ignorance is happiness,
When young Hope is to show the way

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Sweet Hope ! every pleasant flower
Suns itself in thy glad power ;
Every sorrow comes to thee,
Desart fount for Misery !

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
We would liken music to Aladdin's lamp—worthless in itself, not so for the spirits which obey its call. We love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings, it can summon with a touch.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
He was wrong, as all are who rouse the passive resistance of a woman's nature. The indignity and violence with which she was treated only made her turn more fondly to the shelter of the loving heart she believed was so truly her own. Kindness might have brought her to her father's feet, ready to give up her dearest hopes for his sake; but his harsh anger only made her tremble at the hopeless future.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
A blossom full of promise is life's joy,
That never comes to fruit; hope, for a time,
Suns the young floweret in its gladsome light,
And it looks flourishing—a little while,
Tis past, we know not whither, but 'tis gone—

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The present—the actual—were they our all—
Too heavy our burthen, too hopeless our thrall;
But heaven, that spreadeth o'er all its blue cope,
Hath given us memory,—hath given us hope!

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
Oh! sweet and sudden fire that springs
With but a look to light its wings;
How false to say thou needest time
The bright ascent of hope to climb;
A star thou art, that may not be
Reckoned by dull astronomy!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Hard are life's early steps; and but that youth is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope, men would behold its threshold, and despair.

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
There is a flower, a purple flower
Sown by the wind, nursed by the shower,
O'er which Love has breathed a power and spell
The truth of whispering hope to tell.
(According to the Lady's Book of Flowers, 1842, this is the centaury)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Love may be increased with fears,
May be fanned with sighs,
Nurst by fancies, fed by doubts
But without Hope it dies!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
He took his lute—his voice was low,
So lapsing waters softly flow
Amid the drooping flowers around,
As if they turned their sighs to sound.
Ah, magic! of a voice that seems
To haunt the soul with hopes and dreams;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Hope is love's happiness, but not its life;—
How many hearts have nourished a vain flame
In silence and in secret, though they knew
They fed the scorching fire that would consume them!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
But give me one curl of thy raven hair,
And, by all thy hopes in heaven, swear
That, chance what may thou wilt claim thy bride,
And thou to-morrow shall lie by my side.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh! love will last
When all that made it happiness is past,—
When all its hopes are as the glittering toys
Time present offers, time to come destroys,—

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
Hope is a timid thing,
Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh never another dream can be
Like that early dream of ours,
When the fairy Hope lay down to sleep,
Like a child, among the flowers.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I am persuaded there is no triumph equal to one achieved on the stage—it comes so immediate and so home : you have before you the mass of human beings whose sympathies are at your will; you witness the emotions which you raise, you see the tears which you command : the poet has erected the statue, but it is for you to give it life—the words must find their music on your lips—the generous sentiment, the exalted hope, the touches of deep feeling, ask their expression from you : surely such influence is among the triumphs of the mind, ay and a great and noble triumph.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is a well of melancholy poetry in every human bosom. We have all mourned over the destroyed illusion and the betrayed hope. We have quarrelled in some embittered moment with an early friend, and when too late lamented the estrangement.

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