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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   quotes 11   likes

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

“I dread the pictures of my dreams,
For, then I gaze on thee;
And thou art near, and thou art all
That I would have thee be.
And then I startle from my sleep,
And know all false, and watch and weep.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(10th April 1824) Love in Absence
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Dreams , Art , Sleep , Falseness

“… 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

Juliet after the Masquerade. By Thompson
The Troubadour (1825)

Love , Hope , Time , Past

“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?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Wreath
The Golden Violet (1827)

Tree

“IT is in this we differ; I would seek
To blend my very being into thine—
I'm even jealous of thy memory:
I wish our childhood had been pass'd together.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Ancestress (Spoken by Bertha to Jaromir)
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Memory , Childhood

“… any one who has noticed may have observed that the weeping of grown up persons produces a sensation of awe on the mind of a child. Accustomed to associate the idea of superiority with that of their elders, they cannot understand their giving way to the same emotions as themselves.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Way , Idea , Understanding , Personality

“Weep for life, with its toil and care,
Its crime to shun, and its sorrow to bear;
Let tears and the sign of tears be shed
Over the living, not over the dead!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(21st August 1830) The Legacy of the Roses
The London Literary Gazette, 1830

Life , Tear , Dead

“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

The Golden Violet - The Falcon
The Golden Violet (1827)

“Who has not loathed that worst, that waking hour,
When grief and consciousness assert their power;
When misery has morn's freshness, yet we fain
Would hold it as a dream, and sleep again;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

Dreams , Sleep

“Her likeness! why it is a vain endeavour
To image it. Painting or words may never
Say what she was; yet dwell I on the task,
As if that Poesy had a right to ask
From Memory its treasure.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

25th March 1826) Ianthe. A Portrait (under the pen name Iole
(25th March 1826) Moon See The Vow of the Peacock
The London Literary Gazette, 1826

Memory , Painting

“[From Cecil Forrester]: Nothing like love-letters for filling up a rainy morning. A mistress gives a man such an interest in himself! You cannot run your fingers through your hair, without a vision of the locket wherein one of your curls reposes on the fairest neck in the world. An east-wind only conjures up a host of "sweet anxieties;" and if the worst comes to the worst, you can sit down and write sonnets to your inamorata's eyebrow.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Love , World

“I had lost of humanity but its illusions, and they alone are what render it supportable.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Support

“Huge bodies of vapour—a storm in each—were hurrying over a sky, dashed alike with the hues of the tempest and the morning; some of the vapours were of inky blackness, others spread like a scroll of royal purple; some undulated with the light struggling through, others were of transparent whiteness; but those upon the east were of a deep crimson—and the round, red sun had just mounted above an enormous old cedar. Red hues were cast upon everything; even the lilies blushed, and the waters of the little fountain were like melted rubies…”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Light , Water , Sun

“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

Canto II
The Troubadour (1825)

Love , Secret , Birth , Silence

“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

Canto III
The Troubadour (1825)

Beauty , Memory

“Take ye my solemn farewell! O, my friends,
Already night is darkening on my eyes;—
But is not Heaven most beautiful by night?
Thousands of stars shine in the kindling sky,
Which is an azure desert during day.
Thus do the gathering of eternal shades
Reveal innumerable thoughts, half lost
In the full daylight of prosperity.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the French

Beauty , Star , Night

“I'm weary, I'm weary,—this cold world of ours;
I will go dwell afar, with fairies and flowers.
....
I'm weary, I'm weary,—I'm off with the wind:
Can I find a worse fate than the one left behind?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Fantasies, inscribed to T. Crofton Croker, Esq.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Fate , World , Flowers

“{of Theatres} There, while weeping for sorrows which are not, laughing at the light jest or the ludicrous misadventure, how little is remembered of the want which makes fear the only bond that binds the living to life!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Life , Fear , Light

“And the hall is lone, and the hall is drear,
For the smiling of woman shineth not here.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

Smile

“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.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Rose
The Golden Violet (1827)

Pain , Feeling

“Tis something, if in absence we can see
The footsteps of the past: it soothes the heart
To breathe the air scented in other years
By lips beloved; to wander through the groves
Where once we were not lonely”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Guerilla Chief
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Past , Heart

“The past! ah, we owe it a tenderer debt,
Heaven's own sweetest mercy is not to forget;
Its influence softens the present, and flings
A grace, like the ivy, wherever it clings.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Past , Forgetting

“... the clock
Was placed where full the sun-beams fell;—what deep,
Simple morality spoke in those hands,
Going their way in silence, till a sound,
Solemn and sweet, made their appeal to Time,
And the hour spoke its only warning!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Way , Silence , Time , Sun

“(of names) Literary godfathers and godmothers, like those in real life, have much to answer for, on the score of the inappropriate.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Literary Remains

Life

“what an odd thing it is, that the indications of terror are usually ludicrous!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“The woman raised her languid head,
And said, "My child was weak
He knew no one amid the dead
His daily food to seek!
My husband was a hunter good
As ever arrows bore :
I know my child will now have food,
Therefore I weep no more.
I sit and think upon the past,
And sing my mournful strain :
I know that we shall meet at last,
And never part again."”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette (24th January 1835) Versions from the German (Fourth Series.) 'The Huron's Child'— Herder.
Translations, From the German

Food , Thinking , Singing , Past

“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

Canto I
The Troubadour (1825)

Love , Learning , Passion , Heart

“I will look on the stars and look on thee,
and read the page of thy destiny.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(11th October 1823) The Gipsy's Prophecy.
(25th October 1823) Sketch see The Improvisatrice (1824) The Warrior
(15th November 1823) Poetic Sketches. Fourth Series. Sketch I. — The Painter. See The Vow of The Peacock
(6th December 1823) Poetic Sketches. Fourth Series. Sketch IV.— A Village Tale. See The Vow of the Peacock
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Star , Reading

“There is truth and certainty in our first impressions. First impressions are natural monitors, and nature is a true guide.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Other Gift Books

Truth , Nature

“Truly, night was made for sleep; since to its wakeful hours belongs an oppression unknown to the very dreariest hours of day. The stillness is so deep, the solitude so unbroken, the fever brought on by want of rest so weakens the nerves, that the imagination exercises despotic and unwholesome power, till, if the heart have a fear or a sorrow, up it arises in all the force and terror of gigantic exaggeration.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Fear , Exercises , Imagination , Solitude

“The gallantry of an English peasant rarely expands into words.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“Yet one arrow has a power
Lasting till life's latest hour--
Weary day and sleepless night,
Lightning gleams of fierce delight,
Fragrant and yet poisoned sighs,
Agonies and ecstasies;
Hopes, like fires amid the gloom,
Lighting only to consume!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

Life , Hope , Light , Night

“We met in secret : mystery is to love
Like perfume to the flower; the maiden's blush
Looks loveliest when her cheek is pale with fear.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(18th May 1822) Poetic Sketches. Second Series - Sketch the Third. Rosalie
25th May 1822) St. George’s Hospital, Hyde Park Corner see The Improvisatrice (1824
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Love , Secret , Fear , Flowers

“Beautiful and radiant May,
Is not this thy festal day?
Is not this spring revelry
Held in honour, Queen, of thee?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(3rd May 1823) Poetical Catalogue of Paintings - On May-day, by Leslie
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Beauty , Spring

“My heart is like the failing hearth
Now by my side,
One by one its bursts of flame
Have burnt and died.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - Clemenza’s Song
The Golden Violet (1827)

Heart

“Tis strange how the heart can create
Or colour from itself its fate;
We make ourselves our own distress,
We are ourselves our happiness.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto IV
The Troubadour (1825)

Fate , Heart , Happiness

“My heart is with thee, Iove! though now
Thou'rt far away from me :
I envy even my own thoughts,
For they may fly to thee.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(19th October 1822) Songs of Absence
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Heart , Envy , Flying

“Hope is a timid thing,
Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering;
At least, such Hope as human life can bring.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1834-1, page 303) The Future. Re-used in Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides) Vol. I, Chapter 31
The Monthly Magazine

Life , Fear , Hope , Suffering

“A summer isle, one over which the wind
Hath ever pass'd in melody,— such airs
As are born in the rose's breast, and die
Like singing on the waters.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Water , Singing , Summer

“O no, my heart can never be
Again in lighted hopes the same —
The love that lingers there for thee
Has more of ashes than of flame.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1826-2) Ci-Devant
The Monthly Magazine

Love , Hope , Light , Heart

“They met with cold words, and yet colder looks:
Each was changed in himself, and yet each thought
The other only changed, himself the same.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Change from The London Literary Gazette (23rd August 1823)
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Change

“No one makes the heart of a little home circle entirely their own, without some very sweet gifts of nature — we must love to be beloved.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

No. 2. Waverley — ROSE BRADWARDINE.
Literary Remains

Love , Home , Nature , Heart

“All the fairest things of earth,
Art's creations have their birth —
Still from love and death.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1836-2) (Vol.47) Subjects for Pictures. II. The Banquet of Aspasia and Pericles
The Monthly Magazine

Love , Death , Art , Birth

“When every worldly thought is utterly forsaken,
Comes the starry midnight, felt by life's gifted few;
Then will the spirit from its earthly sleep awaken
To a being more intense, more spiritual and true.
So doth the soul awaken,
Like that youth to night's fair queen!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1837-1) (Vol. 49) Subjects for Pictures. Third Series. I. The Awakening of Endymion
The Monthly Magazine

Life , Youth , Soul , Sleep

“Alas, tears are the poet's heritage!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Juliet after the Masquerade. By Thompson
The Troubadour (1825)

Tear

“THERE rests a shade above yon town,
A dark funereal shroud:
'Tis not the tempest hurrying down,
'Tis not a summer cloud.
The smoke that rises on the air
Is as a type and sign;
A shadow flung by the despair
Within those streets of thine.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Summer , Despair

“I have a summer gift,
A sunny gift for thee :
See this white vase, where blooms
A beautiful rose tree.
And on its crimson leaves
Your heart must moralize,
For love a lesson takes
Of every leaf that dies.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(14th May 1825) Song
The London Literary Gazette, 1825

Love , Beauty , Tree , Heart

“One of the loveliest daughters of that land,
Divinest Greece! that taught the painter's hand
To give eternity to loveliness;
One of those dark-eyed maids, to whom belong
The glory and the beauty of each Song
Thy poets breathed, for it was theirs to bless
With life the pencil and the lyre's dreams,
Giving reality to visioned gleams
Of bright divinities.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Leander and Hero from The London Literary Gazette (22nd February 1823)
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Life , Beauty , Dreams , Reality

“He must be rich whom I could love,
His fortune clear must be,
Whether in land or in the funds,
'Tis all the same to me.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(10th November 1821) Six Songs of Love, Constancy, Romance, Inconstancy, Truth, and Marriage - 'Matrimonial Creed
(24th November 1821) Stanzas see The Improvisatrice (1824) as When Should Lovers Breathe Their Vows?
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Love

“My tears are buried in my heart,
Like cave-locked fountains sleeping.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Song - I pray thee let me weep to-night
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Tear , Sleep , Heart