Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONG (5), by LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SONG (5), by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I have belied my woman's heart
Last Line: "watch over love's enchanted sleep."
Alternate Author Name(s): L. E. L.; Maclean, Letitia
Subject(s): Love


I HAVE belied my woman's heart
In my false song's deceiving words:
How could I say love would depart
As pass the light songs of spring birds?
Vain, vain love would be
Froth upon a summer sea.

No, love was made to soothe and share
The ills that wait our mortal birth;
No, love was made to teach us where
One trace of Eden haunts our earth.
Born amid the hours of spring,
Soothing autumn's perishing.

Timid as the tale of woe,
Tender as the wood dove's sigh,
Lovely as the flowers below,
Changeless as the stars on high,
Made all chance and change to prove,
And this is a woman's love.

"WELL changed, fair lady," laughing said
A girl beside, whose chestnut hair
Was wreathed with the wild vine-leaves spread,
As if that she some wood nymph were;
And darker were her brow and cheek,
And richer in their crimson break,
Than those of the fair ring beside.
In sooth, LOLOTTE had often tried
The influence of the wind and sun,
That loved the cheek they dwelt upon
Too well, to leave it without trace
They had known such sweet dwelling-place.
And her bright eyes seem'd as they had won
The radiance which the summer sun
Brought to her valleys lone and wild,
Where she had dwelt. And now half child,
Half woman, in the gay excess
Of all youth's morning happiness,
She came to the Lady of Isaure's towers,
As fresh and as sweet as the forest bowers
Where the gladness had pass'd of her earliest hours.
"Now hearken thee, Lady ISABELLE,
See if aright I read thy spell,
And the rule of thy charmed sway, to keep
Watch over Love's enchanted sleep."





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