Stanzas - When should lovers breathe their vows?

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



"And while the moon reigns cold above,
Oh, warm below reign thou, my love,
    And endless raptures reign with thee." — Lit. Gazette.

When should lovers breathe their vows?
    When should ladies hear them?
When the dew is on the boughs,
    When none else are near them;
When the moon shines cold and pale,
    When the birds are sleeping,
When no voice is on the gale,
    When the rose is weeping;
When the stars are bright on high,
    Like hopes in young Love's dreaming,
And glancing round the light clouds fly,
    Like soft fears to shade their beaming.
The fairest smiles are those that live
    On the brow by starlight wreathing;
And the lips their richest incense give
    When the sigh is at midnight breathing.
Oh, softest is the cheek's love-ray
    When seen by moonlight hours,
Other roses seek the day,
    But blushes are night flowers.
Oh, when the moon and stars are bright,
    When the dew-drops glisten,
Then their vows should lovers plight,
    Then should ladies listen.
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Submitted by Madeleine Quinn on February 16, 2020

Modified by Madeleine Quinn on February 16, 2020

51 sec read
23

Quick analysis:

Scheme AAX BCBCDEDEFEFEXEXEGHGHIJIJ
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 996
Words 170
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 3, 24

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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