Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1824.pdf/67

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INFIDELITY.
66
Literary Gazette, 24th July, 1824, Pages 475


There is his name upon that last dear line.
Her head is turned away from it. You feel
One moment more it will be with the rest.
Around the cedar-tree are cypresses,
Making a solitude with their dark boughs,
Just fit for slighted love;—there it might weep
With silence and with shade, in unison
With its o'ershadowed hopes and wounded heart.
Oh, the deep penalty of happiness!—
At least of woman's happiness. Young love,
Alas! for the fond heart that yields to thee,
Borne on by feelings, gushing like sweet waters
Amid hope’s gardens of the rose, at first
Thro’ the green banks of confidence, to end
In the red desart, there to waste away,
And be no more remembered. Is not this,
Bewitching and false Love, the destiny
Of those that trust in thee?—Beyond the shade
Of the dark cypress is the self-same scene
As in the other picture—the blue sky,
Glorious in sunlight; the same green clad hills;
And the bright river, which seems to rejoice
At having pass'd the black cedar. In the midst
Of the glad landscape is a gallant band—
A bridal company. The bride is there:
White roses bind her veil and pearl-wreathed hair,
Thro' which her changing colour, like a star
Upon the twilight verge, glances tremulous.
And by her side there is that hunter youth—