Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1825.pdf/7

6 Literary Gazette, 12th March, 1825, Page 173

ORIGINAL POETRY. STANZAS. Is this your Creed of Love? It is enough To make one loathe the very name of love. Love is too great a stake for this child’s play— This trifling with your happiness. What! win, And then not wear, the heart that you have won, Till you have rackt each nerve, till you have wrung The life blood forth in tears; and this forsooth, For that its depths of passion will be food To the most selfish of all vanity: Oh shame;—deep shame!

Well, indeed, may you deem, That Love is woe and pain, That all its griefs are real, And all its joys are vain.

While your Creed of Love is like What you say that creed to be, It is the heart creates Its own bliss and misery.

To try, but not to trust— To doubt, and to deride— To trifle, and to torture; And can this be your pride?

To bid the cheek grow pale, The lip lose its gaiety, The eye forget its light, So it is for love of thee.

This could but teach the heart, Its tenderness to hide, For, deep as is a woman's love, 'Tis equall'd by her pride.

What must a woman feel, Whose very soul is given To that wild love—whose world must be    Her all of Hell or Heaven?