Landon in The Literary Gazette 1824/Glen
Literary Gazette, 2nd October, 1824, Pages 636
ORIGINAL POETRY.
LANDSCAPES.
- - - - And must
Such loveliness as this be unto me
But as a dream?
The Glen.
It was a little glen—a solitude—
By Nature fashioned in her gayer mood:
There was so much of sunshine in its shade;
Such pleasant music from the brook, that made
Its way o'er pebbles, shining white, like pearls
Amid some royal maiden's raven curls.
It had no distant prospect: The blue sky
Closed like a dome o'er the sweet sanctuary;
And forest trees, like pillars, girt it round,
Whose branches, summer tapestry, swept the ground;
And then there was a little open space,
Enough to mirror on the water's face
A glimpse of the bright heaven. Upon its banks
Grew the sweet thousands of the harebell's ranks,
Amid white daisies, that, like light and air
And hope and love, are common every where;
And like a couch spread the voluptuous heath,
Scenting the air with its Arabian breath.
And all was silence.[1]—save when the wild bees,
Intoxicate with their noon revelries,
Murmuring, kiss'd the blossoms where they lay;
Or when the breeze bore a green leaf away;
Or when the flutter of the cusha's wing
Echoed its song of plaintive languishing—
The music of complaint it filled the grove,
A mingled tone of sorrow and of love.
On one side of the brook a willow tree
Grew droopingly, as if foredoomed to be
For aye a mourner,—as but made to wave
A sign and shadow o'er some maiden's grave,
Who with some deep and inward secret pined,
Till the pale beauty of her youth declined;
And still her secret with her life was kept,
Till both together in the dark grave slept—
And then they said 'twas love. But in this spot,
Whence care departed, and where grief came not,
It drooped, but not in grief, but as it meant
To kiss the ripples over which it bent.
’Twas just a nook for happy love to dream
O'er all the many joys and hopes that seem
To its fond vision like the bursting flowers,
Whose opening only waits the summer hours;
And yet, with all it breathes and blooms of June,
Not this the spot that I would seek at noon—
It has too much of happiness.
- ↑ probably should be a comma here