Letitia Elizabeth Landon - Hope Quotes

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Pure as the snow the summer sun
Never at noon hath look'd upon, —
Deep, as is the diamond wave,
Hidden in the desart cave, —
Changeless, as the greenest leaves
Of the wreath the cypress weaves, —
Hopeless, often, when most fond,
Without hope or fear beyond
Its own pale fidelity, —
And this woman's love can be!

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
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
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 no existence so content as that whose present is engrossed by employment, and whose future is filled by some strong hope, the truth of which is never proved. Toil and illusion are the only secrets to make life tolerable.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Hope deferred is sickness to the heart — and she was now suffering that sickness, at its worst.

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
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
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
On the horizon is a star,
Its earliest, loveliest one by far ;
A blush is yet upon the sky,
As if too beautiful to die,—
A last gleam of the setting sun,
Like hope when love has just begun ;

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
I held that Love
Which chooseth from a thousand only one,
To be the object of that tenderness
Natural to every heart; which can resign
Its own best happiness for one dear sake;
Can bear with absence; hath no part in Hope,—
For Hope is somewhat selfish, Love is not,—
And doth prefer another to itself.

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
It must be worth a life of toil and care,—
Worth those dark chains the wearied one must bear
Who toils up fortune's steep,—all that can wring
The worn-out bosom with lone-suffering,—
Worth restlessness, oppression, goading fears,
And long-deferred hopes of many years,—
To reach again that little quiet spot,
So well loved once, and never quite forgot;—
To trace again the steps of infancy,
And catch their freshness from their memory!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
—music's power
Is little felt in sunlit hour;
But hear its voice when hopes depart,
Like swallows, flying from the heart
On which the summer's late decline
Has set a sadness and a sign;......
How deeply will the spirit feel
The lute, the song's sweet-voiced appeal;
And how the heart drink in their sighs
As echoes they from Paradise.

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
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
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
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 fact is, that life is too short to be occupied by aught but the present — hope and remembrance are equally a waste of time.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I have such eagerness of hope
To benefit my kind;
And feel as if immortal power
Were given to my mind.

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
Our first love-letter... There is so much to be said, and which no words seems exactly to say — the dread of saying too much is so nicely balanced by the fear of saying too little. Hope borders on presumption, and fear on reproach.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Many a head that down had lain,
Impatient with its twelve hours' pain,
And wishing that the bed it prest,
Were, as the grave's, a long last rest,
Has sprung again at morning's call,
Forgiving, or forgetting all;
Lighting the weary weight of thought
With colours from the day-break brought,
Reading new promise in the sky,
And hearing Hope, the lark on high.

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
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