Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1822.pdf/8

7 Literary Gazette, 26th January, 1822, Page 59

ORIGINAL POETRY

POETIC SKETCHES.

Sketch Third. "You must make Your heart a grave, and in it bury deep Its young and beautiful feelings."

’Tis hidden from the sun by the tall elms, The noon has here no power, and the soft grass Springs fresh and green, even in the summer's heat. There is deep stillness round, save when the gale Talks to the willows that hang gracefully Over the brook, whose broken murmurs are An answer to the wind which brings then breaks The bubbles on its surface; here the dove Coos in the noon day, and at evening tide The woodlark sings his vesper symphony.— This lime grove was the cherished haunt of one Who loved it for its solitude; to him Silence was holiest language, and the leaves, The birds, the clouds, were his familiar friends. His soul was given to poesy, and crowds And peopled cities were as chains to him, Where all was cold and strange, where none could feel As he did; and he loved to shrink away, The deep woods his companions, and to live Mid visions and wild songs. Oh, blessedness! To see the fair creations of the thought Assume a visible form; sweet Poesy! How witching is thy power upon the heart; Enchantment that does bind our senses up In one unutterable influence; A charmed spell set over every thought, Till life's whole hope is cast upon the lyre. Loved with a love intense and passionate, A strange, a jealous, but devoted love. It is not happiness, tho' in the wreath That binds the poet's brow, there's many a hue Of pleasure and of beauty; yet those flowers, Like other blooms, are guarded round with thorns, And subject to the blight and canker-worm.