Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The sunshine of the morning Is abroad upon the hills, With the singing of the green-wood leaves, And of a thousand rills.

Which is the best,— Beauty and glory, in a southern clime, Mingled with thunder, tempest ; or the calm Of skies that scarcely change, which, at the least, If much of shine they have not, have no storms?

O dream of fame, what hast thou been to me But the destroyer of life's calm content!

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 …

Music moves us, and we know not why; We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source. Is it the language of some other state, Born of its memory ? For what can wake The soul's strong instinct of another world, Like music?

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 …

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!

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 …

Childhood whose very happiness is love.

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

So much to win, so much to lose, No marvel that I fear to choose.

O ! the heart has all too many tears ; But none are like those that wait On the blighted love, the loneliness Of the young orphan's fate.

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 …

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.

One moment he is at her knee, “So, Leila, wouldst thou weep for me ?” Started she, as at lightning gleam,— “O, Mirza, this I did not dream! Moslem and Moor, may Spanish maid Hearken such words as thou hast said?”

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.

There grew her father's cypress tree, No other monument had he. He bade that never funeral stone Should tell of glory overthrown,— What could it say, but foreign sky Had seen the exile pine and die?

They see the mortal maiden ride In honour by the chieftan's side, So beautiful, so free from sin, Worthy was she such boon to win : The spirit race that floated round Were not more pure, more stainless found

Blush'd the first blush of coming day, Faded the fairy band away. They pass'd and only left behind A lingering fragrance on the wind, And on the lake, their haunted home, One long white wreath of silver foam.

A louder sweep the music gave : The chieftain of the charmed wave, Graceful upon his steed of snow, Rises from his blue halls below ; And rode he like a victor-knight Thrice glorious in his arms of light.

Such as the lute, touch'd by no hand Save by an angel's, wakes and weeps, Such is the sound that now to land From the charmed water sweeps.

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

We do too little feel each others' pain; We do relax too much the social chain That binds us to each other; slight the care There is for grief in which we have no share.

I cannot choose but marvel at the way In which our lives pass on, from day to day Learning strange lessons in the human heart, And yet like shadows letting them depart.