Lord Melbourne

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



It is a glorious task to guide
The vessel thro’ the dashing tide
When dark is the tumultuous sea
And thunder-clouds are on the lea,
While war notes mount upon the wind
From the fierce storm that rides behind.

And such a task it is to steer
A people in their high career,
When old opinions war, and change
Is sudden, violent, and strange;
And men recall the past, to say,
So shall not be the coming day.

Such time is passing o’er our land,
New thoughts arise—new hopes expand,
And man knows in his own strong will
It is his purpose to fulfil:
In the fierce contest of such hour,
How mighty is the leader’s power.

More glorious than the conqueror’s brand,
The rule entrusted to such hand.
From it the past and present claim
The rights they teach, the hopes they frame:
Do what the island of the free;
What England should expect of thee!
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Submitted by Madeleine Quinn on March 02, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
90

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCC DDEEFF GGHHII GGJJBB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 839
Words 157
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6

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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