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Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes
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Letitia Elizabeth Landon was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L.

✵ 14. August 1802 – 15. October 1838
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon: 785 quotes11 likes

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

“Pillowed on a lotus flower,
Gathered in a summer hour,
Rides he o'er the mountain wave
Which would be a tall ship's grave!
At his back his bow is slung,
Sugar-cane, with wild bees strung”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

“Look on yon child, it droops the head,
Its knees are bow'd with pain;
It mutters from its wretched bed,
"Oh, let me sleep again!"
Alas! 'tis time, the mother's eyes
Turn mournfully away;
Alas! 'tis time, the child must rise,
And yet it is not day.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Factory
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

“O beauty of the midnight skies!
O mystery of each distant star!
O dreaming hours, whose magic lies
In rest and calm, with Day afar!
Thanks for the higher moods that wake
Our thoughtful and immortal part!—
Out on our life, could we not make
A spiritual temple of the heart?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Meditation
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“They say suppers are very unwholesome, our grandfathers and grandmothers never discovered it …”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“Love is a pearl of purest hue,
But stormy waves are round it;
And dearly may a woman rue,
The hour that she found it.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

“Lonely by the moonlit waters
Does the conqueror stand,
Yet unredden'd by the slaughters
Of his mighty band.
Yet his laurel wants a leaf.
There he stands, sad, silent, lonely;
For his hope is vain :
He has reached that river only
To return again.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“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.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Haunted Lake
The Golden Violet (1827)

“How innocent, how beautiful thy sleep!
Sweet one, 'tis peace and joy to gaze on thee!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Sleeping Child
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)

“The sweetest and best qualities of our nature may be turned to evil, by the strong force of circumstance and of temptation.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“He loves not, he loves me, he loves me not,
He loves me, — yes, thou last leaf, yes,
I'll pluck thee not, for that last sweet guess!
" He loves me,””

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(13th November 1824) The Decision of the Flower
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

“A light is gone from yonder sky,
A star has left its sphere;
The beautiful--and do they die
In yon bright world as here?
Will that star leave a lonely place,
A darkness on the night?—
No; few will miss its lovely face,
And none think heaven less bright!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Lost Star from The Literary Souvenir, 1828
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

“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

Canto II
The Troubadour (1825)

“Dark night,
Oh terrible is thy shadow on the battle!
Blows dealt alike on friend and foe, the dead,
And dying trampled on— oh, day alone
Should look upon the soldier's deeds!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1st February 1823) The Cadets. An Indian Sketch
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

“It is the mistake of a coxcomb, whose experience of affection is all to come—if it ever comes—to say that women are won by mere good looks. Though it does not owe its birth to them. Gratitude and Vanity are the nurses that rock the cradle of Love.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“Yes; for, while memory languidly is fetching
Her treasures from the depths which they have lain among,
A fragile hand — how thin — how weak — is sadly sketching
Figures and fancies that cell's white walls along.
On the lip there is a murmur —
It is the swan's last song.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1838 2) (Vol 53) Subjects for Pictures - The Death of Camoens
The Monthly Magazine

“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

Love’s Last Lesson
The Golden Violet (1827)

“Expectation makes a long delay.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

“Happiness! pleasure I should rather say,
Happiness never made on earth a stay”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(5th June 1825) Portraits II
The London Literary Gazette, 1825

“I saw an aged woman turn
To her wretched home again —
All day she had asked charity,
And all day asked in vain....”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1832

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

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - title poem - ending
The Golden Violet (1827)

“How many are there who live eleven months on the hope of the twelfth given to some brief but delightful wandering.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Literary Remains

“Methinks we must have known some former state
More glorious than our present, and the heart
Is haunted with dim memories, shadows left
By past magnificence; and hence we pine
With vain aspirings, hopes that fill the eyes
With bitter tears for their own vanity.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

“Great Heaven! what vain beliefs
Have stirred the pulse and led the hopes of man!
As if that honour could be bought by blood,
And that the fierce right hand was better worth
Than the fine mind, and high and generous heart!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Last of the St. Aubyns
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning! The first sunshine on the leaves: the first wind, laden with the first breath of the flowers-that deep sigh with which they seem to waken from sleep; the first dew, untouched even by the light foot of the early hare; the first chirping of the rousing birds, as if eager to begin song and flight; all is redolent of the strength given by rest, and the joy of conscious life.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“But song has touch'd my lips with fire,
And made my heart a shrine;
For what, although alloy'd, debased,
Is in itself divine.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Source: The Venetian Bracelet (1829), Lines of Life

“Your Dante! Homer of the Christian age,
The sacred poet of Faith’s mysteries—
Hero of thought—whose gloomy genius plunged
In Styx, and pierced to hell; and whose deep soul
Was like the abyss it fathomed.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the French

“But there are natural temples still for those
Eternal though dethroned Deities,
Where from green altars flowers send up their incense:
This fount is one of them.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Thessalian Fountain from The London Literary Gazette (24th January 1824) Fragments, 4th Series
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

“Out on the heartless creed which nulls the claim
Upon the heart of kindred, birth, and name.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Child of the Sea
The Golden Violet (1827)

“true love is like religion, it hath its silence and its sanctity.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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

“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)

“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)

“Another soft and scented page,
Fill’d with more honied words!
What motives to a pilgrimage
A shrine like mine affords!
I know, before I break the seal,
The words that I shall find:”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Belinda, or The Love Letter
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“Delicious tears! the heart's own dew.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Guerilla Chief
The Improvisatrice (1824)

“There are remembrances that will not vanish,—
Thoughts of the past we would but cannot banish:
As if to show how impotent mere will,
We loathe the pang, and yet must suffer still:
For who is there can say they will forget?
—It is a power no science teaches yet.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Title poem, section VII.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

“Well, read my cheek, and watch my eye,—
    Too strictly school'd are they,
One secret of my soul to show,
    One hidden thought betray.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Source: The Venetian Bracelet (1829), Lines of Life

“Each look'd upon his comrade's face,
Pale as funereal stone;
Yet none could touch the other's hand,
For none could feel his own.
Like statues fixed, that gallant band
Stood on the dread deck to die;
The sleet was their shroud, the wind their dirge,
And their churchyard the sea and sky.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

“The bright cloud shone on the river's face,
But the death-black waters had not a trace
Of the crimson blaze that over them play'd :
It seem'd as if a curse were laid
On the grass, on the river, the tree, and the flower,
And shut them out from the sunbeam's power;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Broken Spell
The Golden Violet (1827)

“No man ever enters into the feelings of a woman, let his kindness be what it may; they are too subtle and too delicate for a hand whose grasp is on "life's rougher things." They require that sorrow should find a voice; now the most soothing sympathy is that which guesses the suffering without a question.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

No.7. Rob Roy — DIANA VERNON.
Literary Remains

“The Little Boy’s Bed-Time See under Translations”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

“[Julian - disguised]
The hunter turns not
Despairing from the chase because the deer
Flies from his pursuit : every obstacle
Becomes a pleasure.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

“Clara:
The loving heart delighteth in old songs;
They say so many things we wish to say,
And wake our sympathies, and make us feel
Less strange ourselves. Others have loved as well,
And left these tender relics of their love.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the German

“Youth is frank, eager, and prone to believe in the good; it looks round, and it sees flowers; it looks up and sees stars; evil appears impossible, because it does not seem to be in ourselves. It remains for after and weary years to teach us, that even the young and the innocent may be led into crime by the strong influence of temptation. Passion first, and interest afterwards, lures the feet of men into dark and crooked paths, which none in earlier and holier hours deemed they could tread. We may have been often deceived, but it is not until we ourselves begin to deceive that we dread deceit.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Literary Remains

“It was a face, with nothing but the blush
To mark it from the sculptured features round :
As perfect in its beauty; but the flush
Of earthly warmth and earthly feeling crowned
The master-piece of nature;— that rich gush
Was from the heart, which thus a language found,
The eloquence of truth and silence ever : —
Words, sighs, and smiles deceive, but blushes never.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

24th December 1825) Metrical Fragments - No.1 Anecdote of Canova (under the pen name Iole
The London Literary Gazette, 1825

“… who has not experienced, at some time or other, that words had all the relief of tears?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“Egmont:
Love is not
A bird of prey, to pay the hunter's toil —
He is best won by those who seek him not.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the German