#Letitia Elizabeth Landon

[hello-delicious-tea]

Opinions very much divided in my class the other day, and I’d like to see what my narrow circle of online folks has to say about it.

[woodlandtrust]

The Oak, by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

. . . It is the last survivor of a race Strong in their forest-pride when I was young. I can remember when, for miles around, In place of those smooth meadows and corn-fields, There stood ten thousand tall and stately trees, Such as had braved the winds of March, the bolt Sent by the summer lightning, and the snow Heaping for weeks their boughs. Even in the depth Of hot July the glades were cool; the grass, Yellow and parched elsewhere, grew long and fresh, Shading wild strawberries and violets, Or the lark's nest; and overhead the dove Had her lone dwelling, paying for her home With melancholy songs; and scarce a beech Was there without a honeysuckle linked Around, with its red tendrils and pink flowers; Or girdled by a brier-rose, whose buds Yield fragrant harvest for the honey-bee There dwelt the last red deer, those antler’d kings . . . But this is as dream,—the plough has pass’d Where the stag bounded, and the day has looked On the green twilight of the forest-trees. This oak has no companion! . . . .

[violettesiren]

Summer is come, with her leaves and her flowers’€” Summer is come, with the sun on her hours; The lark in the clouds, and the thrush on the bough, And the dove in the thicket, make melody now. The noon is abroad, but the shadows are cool Where the green rushes grow in the dark forest pool.

We seek not the hedges where violets blow, There alone in the twilight of ev’ning we go; They are love-tokens offered, when heavy with dew, To a lip yet more fragrant’€”an eye yet more blue. But leave them alone to their summer-soft dream’€” We seek the green rushes that grow by the stream.

Away from the meadow, although the long grass Be filled with young flowers that smile as we pass; Where the bird’s eye is bright as the sapphires that shine When the hand of a beauty is decked from the mine. We want not their gems, and we want not their flowers. But we seek the green rush in the dark forest bowers.

The cowslip is ringing its fairy-like chime, Sweet bells, by whose music Titania keeps time; The rose-bush is covered with cups that unfold Their petals that tremble in delicate gold. But we seek not their blossoms in garlands to blend, We seek the green rush where the willow-trees bend.

The green rush, the green rush, we bear it along To the church of our village with triumph and song; We strew the cold chancel, and kneel on it there, While its fresh odours rise with our voices in prayer. Hark the peal from the old tower in praise of it rings, Let us seek the green rush by the deep woodland springs.

The Rush-Bearing at Ambleside by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

[metaphrasis]

[...] but about autumn there is a tender melancholy inexpressibly soothing; decay is around but such is in your own heart. There is a languor in the air which encourages your own, and the poetry of memory is in every drooping flower and falling leaf. The very magnificence of its Assyrian array is touched with the light of imagination [...]

—Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill

[poemoftheday]

Poem of the Day 31 March 2023

Six Songs of Love, Constancy, Romance, Inconstancy, Truth, and Marriage

BY LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON

I Oh! yet one smile, tho' dark may lower Around thee clouds of woe and ill, Let me yet feel that I have power, Mid Fate's bleak storms, to soothe thee still. Tho' sadness be upon thy brow, Yet let it turn, dear love, to me, I cannot bear that thou should'st know Sorrow I do not share with thee. True love's wreath is of mountain flowers, They stand the storm and brave the blast, And blossom on, so love like ours Is sweetest when all else is past. Too well I know what storms have frowned, And now frown on life's troubled tide; Still darker let them gather round, They have no power on hearts so tried. Then say not that you may not bear, To shadow spirit light as mine; I shall not shrink, or fear to share The darkest fate if it be thine!

[105nt]

Ink Black Heart research dump. I won't give anything away plotwise, these are just my notes on the references to art and literature in the book, thought I would share.

Epigraph to Chapter Five: The Power of Words by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A veritable scarlet woman! 🖤❤️🖤

[ukdamo]

Carthage

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Low it lieth—earth to earth— All to which that earth gave birth— Palace, market-street, and fane; 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 presence of the past.

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 the perishing still lurks In thy most immortal works; Thou dost build thy home on sand, And the palace-girdled strand Fadeth like a dream. Thy great victories only show All is nothingness below.

Author's Note: "Early on the morning following, I walked to the site of the great Carthage,—of that town, at the sound of whose name mighty Rome herself had so often trembled,—of Carthage, the mistress of powerful and brave armies, of numerous fleets and of the world's commerce, and to whom Africa, Spain, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and Italy herself bowed in submission as to their sovereign—in short,—"Carthago, dives opum, studilaque asperrima belli:"

I was prepared to see but few vestiges of its former grandeur, it had so often suffered from the devastating effects of war, that I knew many could not exist; but my heart sunk within me when ascending one of its hills, (from whose summit the eye embraces a view of the whole surrounding country to the edge of the sea.) I beheld nothing more than a few scattered and shapeless masses of masonry.

The scene that once was animated by the presence of nearly a million of warlike inhabitants is now buried in the silence of the grave; no living soul appearing, if we occasionally except a soldier going or returning from the fort, or the solitary and motionless figure of an Arab, watching his flocks from the summit of the fragment of some former palace or temple."

Sir G. Temple's "Excursions in the Mediterranean".

[fuzzysparrow]

Diva of the Romantic Age

Despite passing away at 28, Maria Malibran was one of the best-known opera singers of the 19th century. Known for her range, power and flexibility of voice, Malibran could sing both contralto and soprano parts. She also had a stormy personality, which remained legendary long after her death. María Felicitas García Sitches, born on 24th March 1808, grew up in a Spanish musical family in Paris.…

[thefollyflaneuse]

The Gothic Temple, or Mausoleum of Princess Charlotte, Claremont, Surrey

Soon after her marriage in 1816 Princess Charlotte of Wales, only daughter of George IV and his estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick, settled at Claremont House in Surrey with her husband Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. The Princess ordered the construction of a gothic summerhouse on the spot where she first alighted on the estate, and called the retreat her ‘House on the Hill’. In the spring of…

[noirbeduzz]

"Then say not that you may not bear,

To shadow spirit light as mine;

I shall not shrink, or fear to share

The darkest fate if it be thine!"

— Letitia Elizabeth Landon, from Six Songs of Love, Constancy, Romance, Inconstancy, Truth, and Marriage.

[choicesmc]

Nora Lin Rose

Leo Tolstoy / Devil's Price - Dead Man's Poison / Revenge - Letitia Elizabeth Landon Recovering: A Journal - May Sarton / Dora: A Headcase - Lidia Yuknavitch / a note on the body - Danez Smith / Feel It Still - Portugal The Man /John Ford

for: @inlocusmads

[violettesiren]

The bee, when varying flowers are nigh, On many a sweet will careless dwell; Just sips their dew, and then will fly Again to its own cherish'd cell. Thus, tho’ my heart, by fancy led, A wanderer for a while may be; Yet, soon returning whence it fled, Comes more fondly back to thee.

Addressed To— by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

[catie-does-things]

Lohengrin act III scene ii // Revelation 22:4-5 // Psyche; or, The Legend of Love, by Mary Tighe // Psalm 17:15 // Turandot act III scene ii // 1 John 4:7-8 // Cupid and Psyche, by Letitia Elizabeth Landon // Revelation 19:9

[cascadiums]

I love how good poems are at being ghosts. I haven't consciously thought about Letitia Elizabeth Landon in forever and suddenly her Sappho is haunting me again

[octaviasdread]

Okay so first you're a big inspiration to me, you're so cultivated and your writing is *chief kiss*. Second: who are your favourite poets? (I know it's a tough question but I just got home from my poetry class and there's nothing else on my mind)

cultivated!? that is my new favourite word - it sounds way better than nerd, haha

and snap! cus I got your ask on my walk home from romantic lit class <3

as for my favourite poets? that's a difficult question (but a fun one!)

I consistently gravitate towards Percy Bysshe Shelly, Charlotte Smith, Anne Bannerman, Walt Whitman, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Frank O'Hara, Christina Rossetti, and Emily Brontë.

but there are also specific poems I adore like 'Lines of Life' by Letitia Elizabeth Landon, 'Fugue' by Louise Glück, Lady Mary Wroth's Sonnet Sequence, 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor-Coleridge, Allen Ginsburg's 'Howl,' and 'The Wasteland' by T.S. Eliot.

I’d love to know about yours!