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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

“Its berries are red as a maiden's lip,
Its leaves are of changeless green;
And any thing changeless now, I wis,
Is somewhat rare to be seen.
The holly, which fall and frost has borne,
The holly's the wreath for a Christmas morn.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1st January 1831) Christmas Carol
The London Literary Gazette, 1831

Christmas

“To what may youth's first joyance be compared?
To daylight, and the glad song of the lark
Bursting together, — to a sudden gush
Of perfume, till the giddy senses link
With overmuch delight,— a dream,— a tale
Of Paradise, told in fair poesy.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(13th December 1823) Poetic Sketches. Fourth Series. Sketch V.— The Island.
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Youth , Dreams , Sense

“If the wind murmurs then they seem to hear
His voice; and when night falls, the shadows round
Seem the dark foldings of his sweeping robe.
At noon, when life sees only the clear sky,
Feels only the bright sun, the fated one
Whom Death hath called, upon the distance marks
The heavy shade so soon to shroud
All nature from their eyes.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the French

Life , Death , Fate , Feeling

“It is strange, though true, that the happiest part of our life is the shortest in detail. We dwell on the tempest that wrecked, the flood that overwhelmed — but we pass over in silence the numerous days we have spent in summer and sunshine.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Other Gift Books

Life , Silence , Summer , Parting

“…but the waters of life are for ever flowing onwards, and little trace do they bear of what clouds have darkened or reddened the waves below as they floated by.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

No.6. The Antiquary.— MARY MAC INTYRE.
Literary Remains

Life , Water

“Ever sits the lady weeping —
Weeping night and day —
One perpetual vigil keeping,
Till life pass away,
And she join the seven who sleep.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Life , Sleep , Night

“His heart is like a maggot-eaten nut:
There's nothing in it; but 'tis closely shut.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1st October 1831) Epigram of a Miser
The London Literary Gazette, 1831

Heart

“Alas! the praise given to the ear
Ne'er was nor e'er can be sincere—
And does but waste away the mind
On which it preys: in vain
Would they in whom its poison lurks
A worthier state attain.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon


Poetical Portrait III
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Sincerity

“A small clear fountain, with green willow trees;
Girdling it round, there is one single spot
Where you may sit and rest, its only bank;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Tree

“Mother:
Children and sorrow come together. First
Are sleepless nights, and cradle watchings — next
Your age is vexed with maiden fantasies,
And your girl's lover costeth you more care
Than ever did your own. It is not well!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette (7th February 1835)
Translations, From the German

Children , Age , Girl , Lovers

“It is a humbling thing to human pride to observe that strength of mind does not preserve its possessor from indulging any favourite delusion; but that this very strength gives its own force to the belief.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“Is this the curse that is laid on the earth?
And must it ever be so,
That there can be nothing of human good
But must from some evil flow?...”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1832

Evil

“There is a flower, a purple flower
Sown by the wind, nursed by the shower,
O'er which Love has breathed a power and spell
The truth of whispering hope to tell.
(According to the Lady’s Book of Flowers, 1842, this is the centaury)”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Love , Truth , Books , Hope

“The lark is with triumphant song
Singing the rose-touched clouds among:
'Tis there that lighted song has birth,
What hath such hymn to do with earth?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Birth , Light , Singing

“The hope that clings to the least glimpse of blue
Amid a sky of murkiness; the fear
That sickens at itself; the fond deceit,
That will not see the truth; the tenderness,
That only asks to trust; and, at the last,
The knowledge we have known in vain so long
Comes like a thunderbolt, and crashes.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(24th July 1824) Poetic Sketches - 5th Series. Sketch the Second. - Infidelity
(31st July 1824) Poetic Sketches - 5th Series. Sketch the Third.—The Knight’s Tale. See The Vow of The Peacock
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Truth , Fear , Hope , Knowledge

“I can pass days
Stretch'd in the shade of those old cedar trees,
Watching the sunshine like a blessing fall,—
The breeze like music wandering o'er the boughs,—
Each tree a natural harp,— each different leaf
A different note, blent in one vast thanks-giving.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

Music , Nature , Tree

“Never, dear father, love can be,
Like the dear love I had for thee!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto IV
The Troubadour (1825)

Love

“If blasted hopes and ruin'd name,
And all the venom Love lends Shame —
The violent death, and rabble eye,
To look upon its agony;
If these are not enough to win
A pardon for Earth's deadliest sin,
Words will not, cannot! — never dare
Tell me it may be won by prayer!
The coward prayer, the coward tear,
Not from remorse wrung, but from fear!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Love , Death , Fear , Hope

“The loorie brought to his cinnamon nest.
The bee from the midst of its honey quest,
And open the leaves of the lotus lay
To welcome the noon of the summer day.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

Bee , Summer

“The day is past, and the moonbeams weep
O'er the many that rest in their last cold sleep;
Near to the gashed and the nerveless hand
Is the pointless spear and the broken brand;
The archer lies like an arrow spent,
His shafts all loose and his bow unbent;
Many a white plume torn and red,
Bright curls rent from the graceful head,
Helmet and breast-plate scattered around,
Lie a fearful show on the well-fought ground;
While the crow and the raven flock overhead
To feed on the hearts of the helpless dead,
Save when scared by the glaring eye
Of some wretch in his last death agony.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Warrior from The London Literary Gazette (25th October 1823) Sketch
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Death , Lie , Fear , Sleep

“A blossom full of promise is life's joy,
That never comes to fruit; hope, for a time,
Suns the young floweret in its gladsome light,
And it looks flourishing—a little while,
Tis past, we know not whither, but 'tis gone”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(19th January 1822) Poetic Sketches, No.2
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Life , Hope , Light , Time

“I will not seek the battle-field —
The men I there should meet,
What have they done to me to make
Shedding their life-blood sweet?
It is the veriest madness man
In maddest mood can frame,
To feed the earth with human gore,
And then to call it fame.
I have been wrong'd; but were my wrong
The deadliest wrong ere done,
I would not slay my enemy,
But bid him still live on :—
And I should deem my vengeance more
Than the death-wound in strife—
What ills can death inflict like those
Heap'd on each hour of life?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

19th August 1826) Metrical Fragments - No. 1 (under the pen name Iole
The London Literary Gazette, 1826

Life , Death , Men , Mood

“Free, thou sayest,—dream'st thou how?
Loathing wouldst thou shun dismay'd
Freedom by such ransom paid.
—Girl, for thee I'll lay aside
Veil of smiles and mask of pride;
Shrowds that only ask of Fate
Not to seem so desolate.
—I am young,—but Age's snow
Hides not colder depths below …”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Fate , Age , Smile , Girl

“Oh! frail are the many links that are
In the chain of affection's tender care”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Ring
The Golden Violet (1827)

“The Future is more present than the Past :
For one look back, a thousand on we cast;
And hope doth ever memory outlast.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1834-1) (Vol.40) The Future, compare Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides) I, 31
The Monthly Magazine

Hope , Memory , Past , Future

“I would resign the words of praise which now
Make my cheek crimson and my pulses beat.
Could I but deem that when my heart is cold
And my lip passionless, my songs would be
Numbered 'mid the young minstrels' first delights,
And murmured by the lover where his suit
Calls upon poetry to breathe of love.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

[This passage is in Erinna, altered]
The London Literary Gazette, 1825

Love , Lovers , Heart

“She had always thought she would be like her father, and fancied a tall, dark, and handsome face.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“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 bower.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

Love , Beauty , Spring , Tear

“Twas as she hoped, — he sleeps; and now
Her lips are on his throbbing brow,
Sucking the poison forth : 't was bliss
To know she gave her life for his.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(6th March 1824) Metrical Tales. Tale II. The Poisoned Arrow
(13th March 1824) Metrical Tales. Tale III. — The Sisters See The Vow of The Peacock
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Life , Hope , Sleep

“I have all my life been an indweller of the town, and I frankly confess, for a constant residence, I like it better than all the pastoral charms that ever made the morality of an essay, or gave grace to poetry; still there is that about the country to which the heart always turns with a feeling of freshness and renovation. The moonlight walk through the green wood, would come back upon the memory with a spell which would not belong to a lamp-lighted ramble. The green-leaf would give its freshness, the wild-flower its sweetness; on the ear would arise the murmur of the wind in the boughs — or the song of the brook singing like a child for very gladness.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Literary Remains

Life , Feeling , Flowers , Light

“The fair face painted on the dungeon air,
By the strong force of hope, distinct and sweet,
Is a good omen. Love mine, I will rest.
If my last sleep — it will be full of thee.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette (28th March 1835)
Translations, From the German

Love , Hope , Sleep , Strong

“It is a fact, that though a Scotchman be the most locomotive of individuals — there is scarcely a habitable part of the globe where he is not to be found — yet nothing ever weakens his attachment to his country.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

No.9. Old Mortality — EDITH BELLENDEN.
Literary Remains

Parting , Country

“… what could have brought him to Dalton. There were no chalybeate-springs, warranted to cure every disease under the sun; no ruins in the neighbourhood, left expressly for antiquarians and pic-nic parties; no fine prospects, which, like music, people make it matter of conscience to admire; no celebrated person had ever been born or buried in its environs; there were no races, no assizes—in short, there was “no nothing."”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Part 1
Other Gift Books

People , Disease , Music , Spring

“He was wrong, as all are who rouse the passive resistance of a woman's nature. The indignity and violence with which she was treated only made her turn more fondly to the shelter of the loving heart she believed was so truly her own. Kindness might have brought her to her father's feet, ready to give up her dearest hopes for his sake; but his harsh anger only made her tremble at the hopeless future.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Love , Hope , Nature , Future

“I've thought upon thy brow when Night
Threw o'er my pallet her summer moonlight,
And I have looked on the midnight sky
To catch the depth and light of thy eye;
I painted from these and from memory,
For I could not paint when I looked on thee.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

28th April 1824) Raphael Showing his Mistress her Portrait By Mr. Brockedon. (British Gallery.
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Light , Memory , Summer , Painting

“There is a city, that for slaves
Has kings, and nations, winds, and waves:
St. Mark is conscious of her power,
His winged lion marks her tower.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

“Yet gazed MANDALLA on the square
As she he sought still glided there,—
Oh that fond look, whose eyeballs’ strain,
And will not know its look is vain!
At length he turned,—his silent mood
Sought that impassioned solitude,
The Eden of young hearts, when first
Love in its loneliness is nurst.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

Love , Mood , Solitude , Heart

“I left my home, and I was left
A stranger in his land, bereft
Of even hope; there was not one
Familiar face to look upon.—
Their speech was strange.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

Hope , Home

“Youth is too eager, forth it flings
Itself upon exulting wings,
Which seek the heaven they ask too near—
One wild flight ends the bright career;
With broken wing and darkened eye,
Earth claims again its own to die.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Youth

“Religion has no limits, and no bounds;—
The vast, the infinite, and the eternal.,
Never from her may Genius separate.
Imagination from its earliest flight,
Past o'er the bounds of life : and the sublime
Is the reflection of divinity.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the French

Life , Religion , Imagination , Past

“Oh! world of sweet phantoms, how precious thou art!
The past is perpetual youth to the heart.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Youth , World , Art , Past

“… but a man has a natural antipathy to shopping, and even the attraction of a blush, and a blush especially of that attractive sort, one on your own account--even that was lost in the formidable array of ribands, silks, and bargains”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Nature

“The lines were fill'd with many a tender thing,
All the impassion'd heart's fond communing.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Written under a Picture of a Girl Burning a Love Letter from The London Literary Gazette (16th November 1822) Fragments in Rhyme II - Lines Written under a Picture of a Girl Burning a Love Letter
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Communication , Heart

“How sweet on the breeze of the evening swells
The vesper call of those soothing bells,
Borne softly and dying in echoes away,
Like a requiem sung to the parting day.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(22nd September 1821) Bells
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Parting

“Clara:
I will speak softly, till our gathered strength
Finds in its union voice. Ah, no delay!
The tyranny that dared to fetter wears
A midnight dagger.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the German

“Take the actions of our nearest friends, and how little do we know of the hopes that instigated, or of the fears that prevailed! We sometimes cannot avoid owning that we ourselves have committed a fault, but how we gloss it over—how we take temperament and temptation into account, till at length it appears to be a thing inevitable redeemed by the regret it has occasioned, and the lesson it has given. Not so do we reason for others—then we look to the isolated fact, not to the causes: the error shuts out the excuse. The truth is, we know nothing of each other excepting by the aid of philosophy and of poetry; philosophy, that analyzes our thoughts, and poetry that expresses our feelings.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Truth , Fear , Hope , Error

“The poets told thy birth
Was welcomed upon earth
By the sweet multitude of shining flowers,
By bursting buds, green leaves, and sunny hours.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1832

Flowers , Birth

“Other sorrows soften the heart, — poverty hardens it. Nothing like poverty for chilling the affections and repressing the spirits. Its annoyances are all of the small and mean order; its regrets all of a selfish kind; its presence is perpetual; and the scant meal, and the grudged fire, are repeated day by day, yet who can become accustomed to them?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Heart , Selfishness

“Oh, who—reposed on some fond breast,
Love's own delicious place of rest—
Reading faith in the watching eyes,
Feeling the heart beat with its sighs,
Could know regrets, or doubts, or cares,
That we had bound our fate with theirs!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Sisters from The London Literary Gazette: 13th March 1824 Metrical Tales - Tale III.
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Love , Fate , Faith , Feeling

“They say women are more constant than men : it is the constancy of circumstance; the enterprise, the exertion required of men continually force them out of themselves, and that which was at first necessity soon becomes habit — whereas the constant round of employments in which a woman is engaged requires no fatigue of mind or body; the needle is, generally speaking, both her occupation and amusement, and this kind of work leaves the ideas full play; hence the imagination is left at liberty to dwell upon one subject, and hence habit, which is an advantage on the one side, becomes to her an additional rivet.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Other Gift Books

Women , Men , Imagination , Idea