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# Landon in The New Monthly 1836

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Landon in The New Monthly 1836
Poems in The New Monthly Magazine during the year 1836 by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.)
compiled by Peter J. Bolton
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Table of Contents
| The Dream in the Temple of Serapis | Volume 46, Pages 30 to 31 | 4 |
| Ariosto to his Mistress | Volume 46, Pages 441 to 442 | 6 |
| Experience | Volume 46, Page 467 | 8 |
| Song I: I loved her! and her azure eyes | Volume 47, Page 29 | 9 |
| Song II: A mouth that is itself a rose | Volume 47, Page 30 | 10 |
| Song III: I send back thy letters | Volume 47, Page 30 | 11 |
| Song IV: As steals the dew along the flower | Volume 47, Page 30 | 12 |
| Subjects for Pictures | Volume 47, Pages 175 to 179 | 13 |
| I. Petrarch’s Dream | Volume 47, Pages 175 to 176 | 13 |
| II. The Banquet of Aspasia and Pericles | Volume 47, Pages 176 to 178 | 14 |
| III. Rienzi showing Nina the Tomb of his Brother | Volume 47, Pages 178 to 179 | 16 |
| Subjects for Pictures II | Volume 48, Pages 20 to 25 | |
| I. Calypso Watching the Ocean | Volume 48, Pages 20 to 21 | 18 |
| II. A Supper of Madame of Brinvilliers | Volume 48, Pages 22 to 24 | 20 |
| III. The Moorish Maiden’s Vigil | Volume 48, Pages 24 to 25 | 22 |
# Landon in The New Monthly 1835/The Dream

7
The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 44, Page 468
(468)
THE DREAM.
"Sleep hath its own world,
And a wild realm of wide reality;
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy.
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts."
Of thee, love, I was dreaming
 Beneath the moon's pale light;
The trees were silver seeming,
 And the meadow grass was white.
The lark below was sleeping,—
 He asks, whene'er he springs
From the dewy clover's keeping,
 For sunshine on his wings.
The leaves hung dark and shivering
 O'er the colourless dim flowers;
And the aspen's restless quivering
 Alone disturbed the hours.
Pale were the roses, stooping
 Beneath the heavy dews,
And the wan acacia drooping
 Forgot its morning hues.
Perhaps my sleep might borrow
 Its likeness from the shade;
For the shadow of some sorrow
 Upon my soul was laid.
We seem'd to be together,
 And yet we seem'd apart;
In sleep,—I question'd whether
 Mine was the sleeper's part.
Pale faces gather'd round us,—
 The faces of the dead;
With cold white wreaths they bound us,—
 We shudder'd, and they fled.
Next came a crowd; I lost thee
 Amid the rapid throng,
While hurrying strangers cross'd me,
 And forced my steps along.
Strange mirth was there,—but lonely;
 It was not made for me:
I sought for thee—thee only,—
 I sought in vain for thee!
Again we met,—but alter'd:
 Thy brow was not the same:
I strove to speak, but falter'd,—
 I could not breathe thy name.
And then I saw thee leave me,
 And wear another's yoke!
In sleep thou couldst deceive me!
 But ah! at once I woke. L. E. L.
# Landon in The New Monthly 1835/The Parting Word

8
The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 45, Page 155
(155)
THE PARTING WORD.
I leant within the window
 That overlooks the tide;
I saw our eyes were meeting,
 And I saw nought beside.
I knew that we were parting;
 That knowledge made me say
More than my lips had ventured
 On any other day.
I asked "Will you forget me?"
 Too long my dreaming heart
Recall'd the words we whisper'd,
 As there we stood apart.
I see the open window,
 The careless talkers near,
And how I talked as careless,
 To shun their smile or sneer.
I see the silent river
 That wander'd darkly on,
While the mournful light of midnight
 Above the waters shone.
I said—so darkly flowing
 My course of life has been;
With mocking lights, whose lustre
 But partly show'd the scene.
I felt as if the morning
 At length began to shine—
As if my spirit's day-break
 Came from those eyes of thine.
I felt I deeply loved thee—
 With fond and earnest love—
Firm as the earth beneath me,
 True as the stars above.
Such love as I had painted
 Thro' long and lonely years;
Too passionately happy,
 My eyes were fill'd with tears.
I wish that I had shed them,
 They had not then been kept,
For the hours that came the morrow
 To weep as I have wept.
For I have felt the folly
 Of all I fancied then;
Not with my own heart's loving
 Am I beloved again.
I fear my evil planet,
 Whose fortune has denied
The only heart I covet
 In all a world so wide.
The memory of that moment
 Is lingering with me yet:
I said to you remember!
 Ah, must I say forget!
L. E. L.
# Landon in The New Monthly 1836/Ariosto to his Mistress

6
The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 46, Pages 441 to 442
ARIOSTO TO HIS MISTRESS.
[Ariosto is supposed to have written his celebrated Poem at the command of some unknown beauty. On his inkstand was a Cupid with the finger on his lips.]
"He who told
Of fair Olympia, loved and left of old."
I send thee, my beloved one,
 Another song of mine;
Methinks the sweetest I have won
 To offer at thy shrine.
I pray thee borrow tears from sleep
 For young Olympia's woe;
As angels pause in heaven to weep
 O'er grief they cannot know.
Weep for the fate which is to thee
 But like a troubled dream;
Thou knowest not how hearts can be
 Wrecked on life's faithless stream.
Ah! some are born to love and pine,
 And some to love and reign;
Brightest—imperial rule is thine
 Within love's wide domain.
Thou art a queen in thy command,
 Whose sway is smiles and sighs;
The languid wave of that white hand
 The sceptre's state supplies.
I see thee now in that fair room
 Where thou wilt read this scroll:
The faint lamp scarcely breaks the gloom
 Which wraps the haunted whole,
A lovely indistinctness flings
 Its charm around the place,
As if the shadow of love's wings
 Had left their fairy trace.
And ever and anon the wind
 Flings back the fragrant shade,
That jessamine and myrtle twined
 Have round the casement made.
When light and perfume comrades meet
 Their flitting entrance win,
Fair—sweet—but still more fair and sweet
 Whene'er they enter in.
For smiling in her silvery noon
 Looks down night's conscious queen—
But silence—oh, thou trusted moon,
 On all that thou hast seen.
To-night it matters not—to-night
 Thou'lt only see alone,
A lady in whose eyes the light
 Is lovely as thine own.
Is it not—dearest? thou canst tell
 How very fair thou art:
That face—ah, thou must know it well,
 Whose mirror is my heart.
What hours—what moonlit hours have pass'd
 Thy fairy feet beside;
While the long lash its shadow cast
 O'er eyes it could not hide.
When your cheek's native paleness wore
 The rose's transient hue;
And thy red lip—but hush, no more,
 I must not picture you!
Be still our love—a thing unknown,
 It is a flower too rare
To be in common daylight shown,
 To meet the sun and air.
I keep thee with all holier thought,
 The dreaming and the deep;
That not from earth but heaven are brought,
 O'er which we watch and weep.
My hopes, my music and my tears
 Whatever in my line,
Soothes, softens—elevates, endears,
 Are thine and only thine!
Take then my song, and claim thy part,
 Where thou hast lent thy grace—
It caught its music from thy heart,
 Its beauty from thy face.
L. E. L.
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/Faintheart in a Railway Train

FAINTHEART IN A RAILWAY TRAIN
AT nine in the morning there passed a church, At ten there passed me by the sea, At twelve a town of smoke and smirch, At two a forest of oak and birch, And then, on a platform, she:
A radiant stranger, who saw not me. I queried, “Get out to her do I dare?" But I kept my seat in my search for a plea, And the wheels moved on. O could it but be That I had alighted there!
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/Going and Staying

GOING AND STAYING
I
ΤHE moving sun-shapes on the spray, The sparkles where the brook was flowing, Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May, These were the things we wished would stay; But they were going.
II
Seasons of blankness as of snow, The silent bleed of a world decaying, The moan of multitudes in woe, These were the things we wished would go; But they were staying.
III
Then we looked closelier at Time, And saw his ghostly arms revolving To sweep off woeful things with prime, Things sinister with things sublime Alike dissolving.
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/Growth in May

GROWTH IN MAY
I ENTER a daisy-and-buttercup land, And thence thread a jungle of grass: Hurdles and stiles scarce visible stand Above the lush stems as I pass.
Hedges peer over, and try to be seen, And seem to reveal a dim sense That amid such ambitious and elbow-high green They make a mean show as a fence.
Elsewhere the mead is possessed of the neats, That range not greatly above The rich rank thicket which brushes their teats, And her gown, as she waits for her Love.
Near Chard.
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/Haunting Fingers

HAUNTING FINGERS
A PHANTASY IN A MUSEUM OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
"ARE you awake, Comrades, this silent night? Well 'twere if all of our glossy gluey make Lay in the damp without, and fell to fragments quite!"
"O viol, my friend, I watch, though Phosphor nears, And I fain would drowse away to its utter end This dumb dark stowage after our loud melodious years!”
And they felt past handlers clutch them, Though none was in the room, Old players' dead fingers touch them, Shrunk in the tomb.
“'Cello, good mate, You speak my mind as yours: Doomed to this voiceless, crippled, corpselike state, Who, dear to famed Amphion, trapped here, long endures?"
"Once I could thrill The populace through and through, Wake them to passioned pulsings past their will." . . . (A contra-basso spake so, and the rest sighed anew.)
And they felt old muscles travel Over their tense contours, And with long skill unravel Cunningest scores.
“The tender pat Of her aery finger-tips Upon me daily—I rejoiced thereat!" (Thuswise a harpsicord, as from dampered lips.)
“My keys' white shine, Now sallow, met a hand Even whiter. . . . Tones of hers fell forth with mine In sowings of sound so sweet no lover could withstand!"
And its clavier was filmed with fingers Like tapering flames—wan, cold— Or the nebulous light that lingers In charnel mould.
"Gayer than most Was I," reverbed a drum; “The regiments, marchings, throngs, hurrahs! What a host I stirred—even when crape mufflings gagged me well-nigh dumb!"
Trilled an aged viol: "Much tune have I set free To spur the dance, since my first timid trial Where I had birth—far hence, in sunswept Italy!"
And he feels apt touches on him From those that pressed him then; Who seem with their glance to con him, Saying, "Not again!"
"A holy calm," Mourned a shawm's voice subdued, "Steeped my Cecilian rhythms when hymn and psalm Poured from devout souls met in Sabbath sanctitude."
"I faced the sock Nightly," twanged a sick lyre, "Over ranked lights! O charm of life in mock, O scenes that fed love, hope, wit, rapture, mirth, desire!"
Thus they, till each past player Stroked thinner and more thin, And the morning sky grew grayer And day crawled in.
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/Her Song

HER SONG
I SANG that song on Sunday, To witch an idle while, I sang that song on Monday, As fittest to beguile; I sang it as the year outwore, And the new slid in; I thought not what might shape before Another would begin.
I sang that song in summer, All unforeknowingly, To him as a new-comer From regions strange to me: I sang it when in afteryears The shades stretched out, And paths were faint; and flocking fears Brought cup-eyed care and doubt.
Sings he that song on Sundays In some dim land afar, On Saturdays, or Mondays, As when the evening star Glimpsed in upon his bending face And my hanging hair, And time untouched me with a trace Of soul-smart or despair?
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/In the Small Hours

IN THE SMALL HOURS
I LAY in my bed and fiddled With a dreamland viol and bow, And the tunes flew back to my fingers I had melodied years ago. It was two or three in the morning When I fancy-fiddled so Long reels and country-dances, And hornpipes swift and slow.
And soon anon came crossing The chamber in the gray Figures of jigging fieldfolk— Saviours of corn and hay— To the air of "Haste to the Wedding," As after a wedding-day; Yea, up and down the middle In windless whirls went they!
There danced the bride and bridegroom, And couples in a train, Gay partners time and travail Had longwhiles stilled amain! . . .
It seemed a thing for weeping To find, at slumber's wane And morning's sly increeping, That Now, not Then, held reign.
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/Evelyn G. of Christminster

EVELYN G. OF CHRISTMINSTER
I CAN see the towers In mind quite clear Not many hours' Faring from here; But how up and go, And briskly bear Thither, and know That you are not there?
Though the birds sing small, And apple and pear On your trees by the wall Are ripe and rare, Though none excel them, I have no care To taste them or smell them And you not there.
Though the College stones Are smit with the sun, And the graduates and Dons Who held you as one
Of brightest brow Still think as they did, Why haunt with them now Your candle is hid?
Towards the river A pealing swells: They cost me a quiver— Those prayerful bells! How go to God, Who can reprove With so heavy a rod As your swift remove!
The chorded keys Wait all in a row, And the bellows wheeze As long ago. And the psalter lingers, And organist's chair; But where are your fingers That once wagged there?
Shall I then seek That desert place This or next week, And those tracks trace That fill me with cark And cloy; nowhere Being movement or mark Of you now there!
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/He follows Himself

HE FOLLOWS HIMSELF
IN a heavy time I dogged myself Along a louring way, Till my leading self to my following self Said: "Why do you hang on me So harassingly?"
"I have watched you, Heart of mine," I cried, "So often going astray And leaving me, that I have pursued, Feeling such truancy Ought not to be."
He said no more, and I dogged him on From noon to the dun of day By prowling paths, until anew He begged: "Please turn and flee!— What do you see?"
"Methinks I see a man," said I, "Dimming his hours to gray. I will not leave him while I know Part of myself is he Who dreams such dree!"
"I go to my old friend's house," he urged, "So do not watch me, pray!" "Well, I will leave you in peace," said I, "Though of this poignancy You should fight free:
"Your friend, O other me, is dead; You know not what you say." —"That do I! And at his green-grassed door By night's bright galaxy I bend a knee."
—The yew-plumes moved like mockers' beards, Though only boughs were they, And I seemed to go; yet still was there, And am, and there haunt we Thus bootlessly.
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/Her Temple

HER TEMPLE
DEAR, think not that they will forget you: —If craftsmanly art should be mine I will build up a temple, and set you Therein as its shrine.
They may say: "Why a woman such honour?" —Be told, "O, so sweet was her fame, That a man heaped this splendour upon her; None now knows his name."
# Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses/Fetching Her

FETCHING HER
AN hour before the dawn, My friend, You lit your waiting bedside-lamp, Your breakfast-fire anon, And outing into the dark and damp You saddled, and set on.
Thuswise, before the day, My friend, You sought her on her surfy shore, To fetch her thence away Unto your own new-builded door For a staunch lifelong stay.
You said: “It seems to be, My friend, That I were bringing to my place The pure brine breeze, the sea, The mews—all her old sky and space, In bringing her with me!”
—But time is prompt to expugn, My friend, Such magic-minted conjurings: The brought breeze fainted soon, And then the sense of seamews' wings, And the shore's sibilant tune.
So, it had been more due, My friend, Perhaps, had you not pulled this flower From the craggy nook it knew, And set it in an alien bower; But left it where it grew!
# Landon in The New Monthly 1837/Necessity

Necessity.
In the ancestral presence of the dead
Sits a lone power—a veil upon the head, Stern with the terror of an unseen dread.
It sitteth cold, immutable, and still,
Girt with eternal consciousness of ill,
And strong and silent as its own dark will.
We are the victims of its iron rule,
The warm and beating human heart its tool;
And man, immortal-godlike, but its fool.
We know not of its presence, though its power
Be on the gradual round of every hour,
Now flinging down an empire, now a flower.
And all things small and careless are its own,
Unwittingly the seed minute is sown,—
The tree of evil out of it is grown.
At times we see and struggle with our chain,
And dream that somewhat we are freed, in vain;
The mighty fetters close on us again.
We mock our actual strength with lofty thought,
And towers that look into the heavens are wrought,—
But after all our toil the task is nought.
Down comes the stately fabric, and the sands
Are scatter'd with the work of myriad hands,
High o'er whose pride the fragile wild-flower stands.
Such are the wrecks of nations and of kings,
Far in the desert, where the palm-tree springs;
'Tis the same story in all meaner things.
The heart builds up its hopes, though not addrest
To meet the sunset glories of the west,
But garnered in some still, sweet singing nest.
But the dark power is on its noiseless way,
The song is silent so sweet yesterday,
And not a green leaf lingers on the spray.
We mock ourselves with freedom and with hope
The while our feet glide down life's faithless slope One has no strength, the other has no scope.
So we are flung on Time's tumultuous wave,
Forced there to struggle, but denied to save,
Till the stern tide ebbs—and there is the grave.
# Landon in The New Monthly 1837/The Old Times

21
(346)
THE OLD TIMES.
Do you recall what now is living only
 Amid the memories garnered at the heart?—
The quiet garden, quiet and so lonely,
 Where fruit and flowers had each an equal part?
When we had gathered cowslips in the meadow
 We used to bear them to the ancient seat,
Moss-grown, beneath the apple-tree's soft shadow,
 Which flung its rosy blossoms at our feet,
In the old, old times,
The dear old times.
Near was the well o'er whose damp walls were weeping
 Stonecrop, and grounsel, and pale yellow flowers,
While o'er the banks the strawberry plants were creeping
 In the white beauty of June's earliest hours.
The currant-bush and lilac grew together;
 The bean's sweet breath was blended with the rose;
Alike rejoicing in the pleasant weather
 That brought the bloom to these, the fruit to those,
In the old, old times,
The dear old times.
There was no fountain over marble falling;
 But the bees murmur'd one perpetual song,
Like soothing waters, and the birds were calling
 Amid the fruit-tree blossoms all day long;
Upon the sunny grass-plot stood the dial,
 Whose measured time strange contrast with ours made:
Ah! was it omen of life's after trial,
 That even then the hours were told in shade,
In the old, old times,
The dear old times?
But little recked we then of those sick fancies
 To which in after life the spirit yields:
Our world was of the fairies and romances
 With which we wandered o'er the summer fields;
Then did we question of the down-balls blowing
 To know if some slight wish would come to pass;
If showers we feared a shower we sought where growing
 Some weather-flower which was our weather-glass:
In the old, old times,
The dear old times.
Yet my heart warms at these fond recollections,
 Breaking the heavy shadow on my day.
Ah! who hath cared for all the deep affections—
 The love, the kindness I have thrown away?
The dear old garden! There is now remaining,
 As little of its bloom as rests with me.
Thy only memory is this sad complaining,
 Mourning that never more for us can be
The old, old times,
The dear old times. L. E. L.
# Landon in The New Monthly 1838/A Long While

A LONG WHILE AGO.
Still hangeth down the old accustom'd willow,  Hiding the silver underneath each leaf, So droops the long hair from some maiden pillow,  When midnight heareth her else silent grief; There floats the water-lily, like a sovereign  Whose lovely empire is a fairy world, The purple dragon-fly above it hovering,  As when its fragile ivory uncurl'd, A long while ago.
I hear the bees in sleepy music winging  From the wild thyme where they have past the noon— There is the blackbird in the hawthorn singing,  Stirring the white spray with the same sweet tune;
Fragrant the tansy breathing from the meadow,  As the west wind bends down the long green grass, Now dark, now golden, as the fleeting shadow  Of the light clouds pass as they wont to pass A long while ago.
There are the roses which we used to gather  To bind a young fair brow no longer fair;— Ah! thou art mocking us, thou summer weather,  To be so sunny with the loved one!—Where? 'Tis not her voice—'tis not her step—that lingers  In lone familiar sweetness on the wind; The bee, the bird are now the only singers—  Where is the music once with theirs combined A long while ago?
As the lorn flowers that in her pale hand perish'd,  Is she who only hath a memory here. She was so much a part of us, so cherished—  So young, that even love forgot to fear. Now is her image paramount, it reigneth  With a sad strength that time may not subdue; And memory a mournful triumph gaineth,  As the slow looks we cast around renew A long while ago.
Thou lovely garden! where the summer covers  The tree with green leaves, and the ground with flowers; Darkly the past around thy beauty hovers—  The past—the grave of our once happy hours. It is too sad to gaze upon the seeming  Of nature's changeless loveliness, and feel That with the sunshine, round the heart is dreaming  Darkly o'er wounds inflicted, not to heal, A long while ago.
Ah! visit not the scenes where youth and childhood  Pass'd years that deepened as those years went by; Shadows will darken in the careless wildwood—  There will be tears upon the tranquil sky. Memories, like phantoms, haunt me while I wander  Beneath the drooping boughs of each old tree: I grow too sad as mournfully I ponder  Things that are not—and yet that used to be— A long while ago.
Worn out—the heart seems like a ruin'd altar:—  Where are the friends, and where the faith of yore? My eyes grow dim with tears—my footsteps falter—  Thinking of those whom I can love no more. We change, and others change—while recollection  Fain would renew what it can but recal. Dark are life's dreams, and weary its affection,  And cold its hopes—and yet I felt them all A long while ago. L. E. L.