Letitia Elizabeth Landon: Trending quotes (page 36)

“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

Rosalie.
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Love , Life , Fear , Hope

“He said it was fearful to see them stand,
Nor the living nor yet the dead,
And the light glared strange in the glassy eyes
Whose human look was fled.
For frost had done one half life's part,
And kept them from decay;
Those they loved had mouldered, but these
Look'd the dead of yesterday.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Frozen Ship, from The London Literary Gazette, (16th September 1826) - Metrical Fragment No. V. - The Frozen Ship, under the pen name 'Iole'
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Love , Life , Fear , Light

“I was borne on an eagle's wing,
Till with the noon-sun perishing;
Then I stood in a world alone,
From which all other life was gone,
Whence warmth, and breath, and light were fled,
A world o'er which a curse was said:
The trees stood leafless all, and bare,
The sky spread, but no sun was there:
Night came, no stars were on her way,
Morn came without a look of day,—
As night and day shared one pale shroud,
Without a colour or a cloud.
And there were rivers, but they stood
Without a murmur on the flood,
Waveless and dark, their task was o'er,—
The sea lay silent on the shore,
Without a sign upon its breast
Save of interminable rest:
And there were palaces and halls,
But silence reign'd amid their walls,
Though crowds yet fill'd them; for no sound
Rose from the thousands gather'd round;
All wore the same white, bloodless hue,
All the same eyes of glassy blue,
Meaningless, cold, corpse-like as those
No gentle hand was near to close.
And all seem'd, as they look'd on me,
In wonder that I yet could be
A moving shape of warmth and breath
Alone amid a world of death.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto III
The Troubadour (1825)

Life , Death , World , Way

“How many glorious structures we had raised
Upon Hope's sandy basis!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

St. George’s Hospital, Hyde Park Corner from London Literary Gazette (25th May 1822) Poetic Sketches. Second Series - Sketch the Fourth
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Hope

“Grief hath stern and silent powers,
And her house is proud;
Not to-day’s cold guarded hours
Is despair allow'd;
But, shut out with haughty fears,
Pride with daylight disappears,
From the lovely Zegri Ladye —
The Ladye weeping there.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1838 2) (Vol 53) Subjects for Pictures - The Zegri Lady’s Vigil
The Monthly Magazine

Love , Fear , Housing , Despair

“A single grave! —the only one
In this unbroken ground,
Where yet the garden leaf and flower
Are lingering around.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Single Grave from The London Literary Gazette (29th August 1829)
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Flowers

“There is an indolence in grief
Which will not even seek relief.
What is the toil, or care, or pain,
The human heart cannot sustain?
Enough if struggling can create
A change or colour in our fate;
But where's the spirit that can cope
With listless suffering, when hope,
The last of misery's allies,
Sickens of its sweet self, and dies.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto III
The Troubadour (1825)