Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1829.pdf/6

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I would not care, at least so much, sweet Spring, For the departing colour of thy flowers— The green leaves early falling from thy boughs— Thy birds so soon forgetful of their songs— Thy skies, whose sunshine ends in heavy showers;— But thou dost leave thy memory, like a ghost, To haunt the ruined heart, which still recurs To former beauty; and the desolate Is doubly sorrowful when it recalls It was not always desolate.

those eyes have forgotten the smile they wear now, When care shall have shadowed that beautiful brow— When thy hopes and thy roses together lie dead, And thy heart turns back pining to days that are fled—

Then wilt thou remember what now seems to pass Like the moonlight on water, the breath-stain on glass: Oh! maiden, the lovely and youthful, to thee, How rose-touched the page of thy future must be!

By the past, if thou judge it, how little is there But flowers that flourish, but hopes that are fair; And what is thy present? a southern sky's spring, With thy feelings and fancies like birds on the wing.

As the rose by the fountain flings down on the wave Its blushes, forgetting its glass is its grave; So the heart sheds its colour on life's early hour, But the heart has its fading as well as the flower.