Corfu

Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)



Now, doth not summer’s sunny smile
Sink soft o’er that Ionian isle,
While round the kindling waters sweep
The murmur'd music of the deep,
The many melodies that swell
From breaking wave and red-lipp’d shell ?

Love mine ! how sweet it were to leave
     This weary world of ours behind,
And borrow from the blushing eve
     The wild wings of the wandering wind ?
     Would we not flee away and find
Some lonely cave beside the shore ?
One, where a Nereid dwelt of yore,
And sheltered in its glistening bowers,
A love almost as fond as ours ?
A diamond spar incrusts the walls,
A rainbow light from crystal falls ;
And, musical amid the gloom,
A fountain’s silvery showers illume
The further darkness, as with ray
And song it finds its sparkling way.
A natural lute and lamp—a tone,
A light, to wilder waves unknown.
The cave is curtain'd with the vine,
And inside wandering branches twine,
While from the large green leaves escape
The blooming clusters of the grape ;—
Fruit with such hyacinthine glow
As southern sunbeams only know.
We will not leave it, till the moon
     Lulls with her languid look the sea ;
Sleep, shadow, silence for the noon,
     But midnight Love to wake with thee,
When the sweet myrtle trees exhale
The odours of their blossoms pale,
And dim and purple colours steep
Those blossoms in their perfumed sleep ;
Where closed are the cicala’s wings,
And no leaf stirs, nor wild bird sings,
Lull’d by the dusk air, warm and sweet;
Then kneeling, dearest, at thy feet,
Thy face the only sight I see,
     Thy voice the only sound I hear,
While midnight's moonlit mystery
     Seems the full heart’s enchanted sphere.
Then should thy own low whisper tell
Those ancient songs thou lov’st so well ;
Tales of old battles which are known
To me but from thy lip alone ;
Dearer than if the bard again
Could sound his own imperial strain.
Ah, folly ! of such dreaming hours,
That are not, that may not be ours.
Farewell ! thou far Ionian isle
That lighted for my love awhile,
A sweet enchantment formed to fade,
Of darker days my life is made ;
Embittering my reality
With dreams of all that may not be.
Such fairy fancies when they part,
But leave behind a withered heart ;
Dreaming o’er all it hath not known ;
Alas ! and is such heart mine own ?
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Submitted by Madeleine Quinn on December 09, 2016

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:00 min read
119

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCC DEDEEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLMMNNOPOPQQBBRRSSPXPXCCKKXXGGAATTPPUUKK
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,271
Words 397
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 6, 57

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was an English poet. Born 14th August 1802 at 25 Hans Place, Chelsea, she lived through the most productive period of her life nearby, at No.22. A precocious child with a natural gift for poetry, she was driven by the financial needs of her family to become a professional writer and thus a target for malicious gossip (although her three children by William Jerdan were successfully hidden from the public). In 1838, she married George Maclean, governor of Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast, whence she travelled, only to die a few months later (15th October) of a fatal heart condition. Behind her post-Romantic style of sentimentality lie preoccupations with art, decay and loss that give her poetry its characteristic intensity and in this vein she attempted to reinterpret some of the great male texts from a woman’s perspective. Her originality rapidly led to her being one of the most read authors of her day and her influence, commencing with Tennyson in England and Poe in America, was long-lasting. However, Victorian attitudes led to her poetry being misrepresented and she became excluded from the canon of English literature, where she belongs. more…

All Letitia Elizabeth Landon poems | Letitia Elizabeth Landon Books

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