Letitia Elizabeth Landon - The troubadour (1825)

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We make ourselves our own distress,
We are ourselves our happiness.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
It was no fancy, he had named the name
Of love, and at that thought her cheek grew flame:

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
It matters not its history; love has wings
Like lightning, swift and fatal, and it springs
Like a wild flower where it is least expected,
Existing whether cherish'd or rejected;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Alas! for him whose youthful fire
Is vowed and wasted on the lyre,—
Alas! for him who shall essay,
The laurel's long and dreary way!
Mocking will greet, neglect will chill
His spirit's gush, his bosom's thrill;
And, worst of all, that heartless praise
Echoed from what another says.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Beautiful language! Love's peculiar, own,
But only to the spring and summer known.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh! what is memory but a gift
Within a ruin'd temple left,
Recalling what its beauties were,
And then presenting what they are.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh, she had yet the task to learn
How often woman's heart must turn
To feed upon its own excess
Of deep yet passionate tenderness!
How much of grief the heart must prove
That yields a sanctuary to love!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The dying chief sprang to his knee,
And the staunch'd wounds well'd fearfully;
But his gash'd arm, what is it now?
Livid his lip, and black his brow,
While over him the slayer stood,
As if he almost scorn'd the blood
That cost so little to be won,—
He strikes,—the work of death is done!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
For his was now the loveliest part
Of the young poet's life, when first,
In solitude and silence nurst,
His genius rises like a spring
Unnoticed in its wandering;
Ere winter cloud or summer ray
Have chill'd, or wasted it away,

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Alas! that every lovely thing
Lives only but for withering,—
That spring rainbows and summer shine
End but in autumn's pale decline.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The first, the very first; oh! none
Can feel again as they have done;
In love, in war, in pride, in all
The planets of life's coronal,
However beautiful or bright,—
What can be like their first sweet light?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Never, dear father, love can be,
Like the dear love I had for thee!

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
'Tis not for Spring to think on all
The sear and waste of Autumn's fall: —

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
'Tis strange with how much power and pride
The softness is of love allied.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Where is the heart that has not bow'd
A slave, eternal Love, to thee:
Look on the cold, the gay, the proud,
And is there one among them free?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is a steep and lofty wall,
Where my warders trembling stand,
He who at speed shall ride round its height,
For him shall be my hand.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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
Autumn was falling, but the pine
Seem'd as it mock'd all change; no sign
Of season on its leaf was seen,
The same dark gloom of changeless green.
But like the gorgeous Persian bands
'Mid the stern race of northern lands,
The chesnut boughs were bright with all
That gilds and mocks the autumn's fall.

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
He fell as other thousands do,
Trampled down where they fall,
While on a single name is heap'd
The glory gain'd by all.
Yet even he whose common grave
Lies in the open fields,
Died not without a thought of all
The joy that glory yields.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I kiss'd her lips: oh, God, the chill!
My heart is frozen with it still:—
It was as suddenly on me
Open'd my depths of misery.
I flung me on the ground, and raved,
And of the wind that past me craved
One breath of poison, till my blood
From lip and brow gush'd in one flood.
I watch'd the warm stream of my veins
Mix with the death wounds clotted stains;
Oh! how I pray'd that I might pour
My heart's tide, and her life restore!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I LOVED her! ay, I would have given
A death-bed certainty of heaven
If I had thought it could confer
The least of happiness on her!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The scar of fire, the dint of steel,
Are easier than Love's wounds to heal.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh, where is there the heart but knows
Love's first steps are upon the rose!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Oh, love is timid in its birth!
Watching her lightest look or stir,
As he but look'd and breathed with her.
Gay words were passing, but he leant
In silence; yet, one quick glance sent,—
His secret is no more his own,
When has woman her power not known?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
AY, screen thy favourite dove, fair child,
Ay, screen it if you may,—
Yet I misdoubt thy trembling hand
Will scare the hawk away.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Yet, wake again, I pray thee, wake;
My soul yet lives upon the chords —
My heart must breathe its wrongs, or break :
Yet can it find relief in words !

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
Oh! why should woman ever love,
Trusting to one false star above;
And fling her little chance away
Of sunshine for its treacherous ray.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon