Letitia Elizabeth Landon: Likeness (page 6)

“Literature soon becomes a power, not what it once was, a passion; but literary success, like all others, is only to be obtained, and retained, by labour — and labour and inclination do not always go together. Take all our most eminent writers, and the quantity of work, hard work, they have got through, will be found enormous and perpetual. Literature, as a profession, allows little leisure, and less indulgence.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Literature , Passion , Success

“Oh Genius! fling aside thy starry crown,
Close up thy rainbow wings, and on thy head
Lay dust and ashes — for, this cold drear world
Is but thy prison-house. Alas for him
Who has thy dangerous gifts, for they are like
The fatal ones that evil spirits give, —
Bright and bewildering, leading unto death.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(26th July 1823) The Artist’s Studio
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Death , World , Evil , Housing

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

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

Parting

“For his was now the loveliest part
Of the young poet's life, when first,
In solitude and silence nurst,
His genius rises like a spring
Unnoticed in its wandering;
Ere winter cloud or summer ray
Have chill'd, or wasted it away”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto I
The Troubadour (1825)

Life , Spring , Solitude , Silence

“the hollow voice
Of that old crone, the only living sound;
Her face, on which mortality has writ
Its closing, with the wan and bony hand,
Raised like a spectre's—and yourself the while,
Cold from the midnight chill, and white with fear,
Your large blue eyes darker and larger grown
With terror's chain'd attention, and your breath
Suppress'd for very earnestness.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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

Fear

“She was tall beyond the ordinary height of woman, but stately in her grace as the ideal of a queen and the reality of a swan. Her arms and feet were bare, but for the gems which encircled them. A white robe swept around her in folds gathered at the waist by a golden girdle inscribed with signs and characters. Her hair was singularly thick, and of that purple blackness seen on the grape and the neck of the raven — black, with a sort of azure bloom upon it. It was fastened in large folds, which went several times round the head, and these were adorned with jewels and precious stones, like a midnight lighted with stars. Her complexion was a pale pure olive, perfectly colourless, but delicate as that of a child. Her mouth was the only spot where the rose held dominion, and lips of richer crimson never opened to the morning.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Star , Reality , Light , Time

“An Alma girl! oh shame, deep shame,
To Brahma's race and Brahma's name!
Unmarked, unpitied, she turned aside,
For a moment her bursting tears to hide.
None thought of the Bayadere, till the fire
Blazed redly and fiercely the funeral pyre,
Then like a thought she darted by,
And sprang on the burning pile to die!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Bayadere from The London Literary Gazette (30th August, 6th and 13th September 1823)
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Girl , Tear

“We differ widely from each other; do we not, as circumstances change around us, moulding us like slaves to their will — do we not differ yet more from ourselves?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Literary Remains

Change

“What a duty it is to cultivate a pleasant manner! how many a meeting does it make cheerful which would otherwise have been stupid and formal! We do not mean by this the mere routine of polite observance, but we mean that general cheerfulness which, like the sunshine lights up whatever it touches, that attention to others which discovers what subject is most likely to interest them, and that information which, ready for use, is easily laid under contribution by the habit of turning all resources to immediate employ. In short, a really pleasant manner grows out of benevolence, which can be as much shown in a small courtesy as in a great service.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

Stupidity , Light

“But o'er CYRENE'S cheek the rose,
Like moon-touch'd water, ebbs and flows;
And eyes that droop like Summer flowers
Told they could change with shine and showers.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Lost Pleiad
Source: The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Flowers , Water , Change , Summer

“Autumn was falling, but the pine
Seem'd as it mock'd all change; no sign
Of season on its leaf was seen,
The same dark gloom of changeless green.
But like the gorgeous Persian bands
'Mid the stern race of northern lands,
The chesnut boughs were bright with all
That gilds and mocks the autumn's fall.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto II
The Troubadour (1825)

Autumn , Change , Season

“Down swept the gathered waters over rocks
Which broke at times the column's foaming line;
Darkening amid the snow-white froth, it swept
Like an all conquering army, and an arch
Of sparkling hues that in the sunbeams played
Seemed to unite it with the sky which hung
Above all calmness and repose :”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(16th February 1822) Poetic Sketches, No.6
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Water , Time

“No other language than some soft sweet sounds
She had caught from the voices of the birds
When singing to the morning, and the notes
Sent from the waterfall, when, like a harp,
It held discourse in music with the wind.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Music , Bird , Singing

“I stood between the meeting Years,
The coming and the past,
And I ask'd of the future one,
Wilt thou be like the last?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1826-1) Stanzas on the New Year
The Monthly Magazine

Past , Future

“It is Rome's secret charm to reconcile
Imagination with our long last sleep.
We are resign'd ourselves, and suffer less
For those we love. The people of the South
Paint closing life in hues less terrible
Than do the gloomy nations of the North :
The sun, like glory, even warms the grave.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Chant of Corinne at the Capitol
Translations, From the French

Love , Life , People , Secret

“I did not choose my gift: too soon my heart,
Watch-like, had pointed to a later hour
Than time had reach'd: and as my years pass'd on,
Shadows and floating visions grew to thoughts,
And thoughts found words, the passionate words of song,
And all to me was poetry.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Passion , Time , Heart

“The first, the very first; oh! none
Can feel again as they have done;
In love, in war, in pride, in all
The planets of life's coronal,
However beautiful or bright,—
What can be like their first sweet light?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto II
The Troubadour (1825)

Love , Life , War , Beauty

“…; but conscience, like a child, is soon lulled to sleep; and habit is our idea of eternity.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Idea , Sleep

“My spell is done, my prize is won;
True love! thou hast equal none;
True love! who could choose for thee
Gold or gems or vanity?
Where is the spell whose charm will prove,
Like the spell of thy charm, true love?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(28th February 1824) Metrical Tales. Tale I. The Three Wells - A Fairy Tale
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Love

“Death came like a friend to restore thee
To those who had died before thee:
Father, mother,
Sister, brother—
There were none of these to mourn o’er thee.
But now that Death has found thee,
Thy kindred and friends are round thee;
In their rest they are laid
In the dark yew shade,
And cold sleep like their own has bound thee.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(18th August 1827) Euthanasia
The London Literary Gazette, 1827

Death , Sister , Sleep