Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1823.pdf/97

96 Literary Gazette, 16th August 1823, Page 524

FRAGMENT.

Oh it is veriest vanity to love!— Lovers are misers, who hoard up a store Of wealth that cannot profit them, but turns To weariness or waste. And what is love, So sought with deep anxiety till won? Beautiful disappointment when once gained. We are now seated by a green turf grave: The white rose, which hangs o'er it droopingly, Parched by the summer, for which yet it pined Throughout the winter, is the history Of its cold tenant. She was a fair girl, The very flower of Andalusian maids; No one so often heard the light guitar Steal on her midnight; and tho' rarely gold Or pearls bound her dark tresses, there were few Of nobler birth, or of more Indian wealth. So very young, so beautiful, 'twas like The sudden fading of a bud in spring— On which there is no mark of blight or worm, When her place was found vacant in the dance, And her soft voice was missed; when it was said That in a convent's solitude she hid The light and bloom of her sweet April time. They did not know how youth's best pleasures pall When the heart is not in them, or how much Of happiness is in those secret thoughts Which each hides from the other. Lived but in one deep feeling, for she loved— Loved with that wild and intense love which dwells In silence, secrecy, and hopelessness, And deemed a cloister was the fittest shade For unrequited tenderness; and love, Nourished by blushes and by passionate tears, Grew like a fairy flower, until it filled The solitary heart with fancied beauty.—