Poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) from Flowers of Loveliness, 1838/The Marvel of Peru
MARVEL OF PERU
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From the New Yorker, 8th September, 1838, page 389
THE MARVEL OF PERU.
A radiant beauty of the lovely South,
As languid as her valley's scented gale;
The rose hath only place on that sweet mouth—
A rose it is, but the soft cheek is pale.
Her large dark eyes are like a summer night,
Before the moon's soft crescent shines above;
Filled with a tender, yet a shadowy light,
Whose silence is the eloquence of Love.
She dwelleth like a lone and fairy flower,
That hath its home in some enchanted soil;
What knoweth she of life's more troubled hour—
Our northern lot of hurry, care and toil?
Half slave, half idol, she is kept apart;
Her palace-prison is a veiled shrine;
Enough for her the sweet world of the heart;
Ah! little hath the ladye to resign!
Listless she dreams the sultry noon away,
The painted fan just stirs her raven hair;
The silken curtains yield a shadowy day,
That makes the pale, fair beauty seem more fair.
Faint are the colours[1] in that darkened room;
When the wind lifts the curtain's crimson fold,
Amid a rich obscurity of gloom
Are seen the rainbow gems, the carved gold.
And on a table near, a little flower
Droops in a vase as white as sculptured snow;
It was her favourite in her childhood's bower,
The Marvel of Peru;—she loves it now.
The perfumed atmosphere around is filled
With many odors—summer's scented spoil:
The fragrant waters from sweet woods distilled,
Spices, and cinnamon, and precious oil.
Oh, life of pleasant languor and repose!
Like some frail plant that languishes at noon;
The dark-eyed beauty need not envy those
To whom such charmed lot were earth's best boon.
What is the world we live in but a strife
Of vanity and envy, hate and fear?
That what we so miscall our social life
Is one great error—sullen, vast and drear.
A happier lot is Woman’s thus confined
To one deep love, and one sweet solitude;
Oh! what availeth to awake the mind,
Whose higher struggles are so soon subdued?
- ↑ Landon's original spelling, colors in the American version