Letitia E. Landon > Quotes

“We are rarely wrong when we act from impulse”
― Letitia E. Landon, The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre

“O'er some, Love's shadow may but pass
As passes the breath-stain o'er glass;
And pleasures, cares, and pride combined,
Fill up the blank Love leaves behind.
But there are some whose love is high,
Entire, and sole idolatry;
Who, turning from a heartless world,
Ask some dear thing, which may renew
Affection's severed links, and be
As true as they themselves are true.
But Love's bright fount is never pure;
And all his pilgrims must endure
All passion's might suffering
Ere they may reach the blessed spring.
And some who waste their lives may find
A prize which they may never win:
Like those who search for Irem's groves
Which found, they may not enter in.
Where is the sorrow that appears
In Love's long catalogue of tears?
And some there are who leave the path
In agony and fierce disdain;
But bear upon each cankered breast
The scar that never heals again.”
― Letitia E. Landon

“Dust that never asks in vain
Hath reclaim'd its own again.
Dust, the wide world's king.
Where are now the glorious hours
Of a nation's gather'd powers?
Like the setting of a star,
In the fathomless afar;
Time's eternal wing
Hath around those ruins cast
The dark presense of the past.”
― Letitia E. Landon

“Mind, what art thou? Dost thou not
Hold the vast earth for thy lot?
In thy toil, how glorious.
What dost thou achieve for us,
Over all victorious!
Godlike thou dost seem.
But they perishing still lurks
In thy most immortal works;
Thou dost build thy home on sand,
And the palace-girdled stream
Fadeth like a dream.
Thy great victories only show
All is nothingness below.”
― Letitia E. Landon