Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair, And gaze upon her smile; Seem as you drank the very air Her breath perfumed the while: And wake for her the gifted line, That wild and witching lay, And swear your heart is as a shrine, That only owns her sway. ’Tis well: I am revenged at last,— Mark you that scornful cheek,— The eye averted as you pass’d, Spoke more than words could speak. Ay, now by all the bitter tears That I have shed for thee,— The racking doubts, the burning fears,— Avenged they well may be— By the nights pass’d in sleepless care, The days of endless woe; All that you taught my heart to bear, All that yourself will know. I would not wish to see you laid Within an early tomb; I should forget how you betray’d, And only weep your doom: But this is fitting punishment, To live and love in vain,— Oh my wrung heart, be thou content, And feed upon his pain. Go thou and watch her lightest sigh,— Thine own it will not be; And bask beneath her sunny eye,— It will not turn on thee. ’Tis well: the rack, the chain, the wheel, Far better hadst thou proved; Ev’n I could almost pity feel, For thou art nor beloved.

And this is what is left of youth! . . . There were two boys, who were bred up together, Shared the same bed, and fed at the same board; Each tried the other’s sport, from their first chase, Young hunters of the butterfly and bee, To when they followed the fleet hare, and tried The swiftness of the bird. They lay beside The silver trout stream, watching as the sun Played on the bubbles: shared each in the store Of either’s garden: and together read Of him, the master of the desert isle, Till a low hut, a gun, and a canoe, Bounded their wishes. Or if ever came A thought of future days, ’twas but to say That they would share each other’s lot, and do Wonders, no doubt. But this was vain: they parted With promises of long remembrance, words Whose kindness was the heart’s, and those warm tears, Hidden like shame by the young eyes which shed them, But which are thought upon in after-years As what we would give worlds to shed once more. They met again, — but different from themselves, At least what each remembered of themselves: The one proud as a soldier of his rank, And of his many battles: and the other Proud of his Indian wealth, and of the skill And toil which gathered it; each with a brow And heart alike darkened by years and care. They met with cold words, and yet colder looks: Each was changed in himself, and yet each thought The other only changed, himself the same. And coldness bred dislike, and rivalry Came like the pestilence o’er some sweet thoughts That lingered yet, healthy and beautiful, Amid dark and unkindly ones. And they, Whose boyhood had not known one jarring word, Were strangers in their age: if their eyes met, ’Twas but to look contempt, and when they spoke, Their speech was wormwood! . . . . . . And this, this is life!