Letitia Elizabeth Landon - The golden violet (1827)

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Dreary it is the path to trace,
Step by step of sin's wild race.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Teach it me, if you can,—forgetfulness!
I surely shall forget, if you can bid me;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
But not like this is Nature's face,
Though even she must bear the trace
Of the great curse that clings to all ;
Her leaves, her flowers, must spring to fall :

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh, what am I, and what are they ?
Masquers but striving to deceive
Themselves and others ; and believe
It is enough, if none shall know
The covered mass of care below.

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
For misery, like a masquer, mocks at all
In which it has no part, or one of gall,

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
How much
I loved the painter's glorious art, which forms
A world like, but more beautiful than this;
Just catching nature in her happiest mood!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I numbered years of pain and distress,
And but fourteen days of happiness.
Mortal, nor pleasure, nor wealth, nor power,
Are more than the toys of a passing hour;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Down she bent
Her head upon an arm so white that tears
Seem'd but the natural melting of its snow,
Touch'd by the flush'd cheek's crimson.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Let worldly coldness and care depart,
And yield to the spell of the minstrel's art.

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
Despair weeps not. Her lip moved as in prayer
Unconsciously ; as if prayers had been there,
And they moved now from custom.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Had my eye never on the beauty dwelt
Of human face, and my ear never drank
The music of a human voice; I feel
My spirit would have pour'd itself in song,
Have learn'd a language from the rustling leaves,
The singing of the birds, and of the tide.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
It is a charmed ring—this emerald stone
Will be a sign, when thou art from me gone.
Mark if it changes; if a spot be seen
On the now spotless ground of lighted green,
Danger is round me; haste thou then to me,
Thou know'st how fearless is my trust in thee.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Where do purple bubbles swim,
But upon the goblet's brim ?
Drink not deep, howe'er it glow
Sparkles never lie below.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
But music is a mystery, and viewless
Even when present, and is less man's act,
And less within his order; for the hand
That can call forth the tones, yet cannot tell
Whither they go, or if they live or die,
When floated once beyond his feeble ear;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
For he had curious colours, that could give
The human face so like, it seem'd to live.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is an antique gem, on which her brow
Retains its graven beauty even now.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The earth was parched, the trees were sear'd,
And blasted every branch appear'd;
At one end yawned a gloomy cave,
Black, as its mouth were that of the grave;
And dark, as if the waters of death
Were in its depths, rose a well beneath.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
What need hath she
Of shrine to her divinity?
Each fair face is her visible shrine;
She hath been, she will be divine.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Then rose those deadlier sounds that tell
When foes meet hand to hand,—
The shout, the yell, the iron clang
Of meeting spear and brand.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Maiden, fling from thy braided hair
The red rosebud that is wreathed there ;
For he who planted the parent tree
Is now what soon that blossom will be.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Ahmed comes back a conqueror, but what hath he found?
The cry of the orphan is loud on his ear,
And his eye hath beheld the young bride's bitter tear,
And the friend of his youth is left dead on the plain,
And the flower of his nobles return not again.
There are crowds that are filling the air with his name;
Do ye marvel the monarch is loathing his fame?

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
Pride misers with enjoyment, when we have
Delight in things that are but of the mind:
But half humility when we partake
Pleasures that are half wants, the spirit pines
And struggles in its fetters, and disdains
The low base clay to which it is allied.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
She fell as falls the rose in spring,
The fairest are ever most perishing,
Yet lingers that tale of sorrow and love,
Of the Christian maid and her Moslem love ;
A tale to be told in the twilight hour,
For the beauty's tears in her lonely bower.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
When will my soul forget the look
With which one single stem she took
From out the wreath ?—a tulip flower;
But, touch'd as by some withering power,
The painted leaves were drooping round
The rich but burning heart they bound.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Out on the heartless creed which nulls the claim
Upon the heart of kindred, birth, and name.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh! frail are the many links that are
In the chain of affection's tender care,

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
'T was night, but night which the imperial moon,
Regal in her full beauty, turn'd to noon,
But still the noon of midnight; though the ray
Was clear and bright, it was not that of day;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon