Landon in The Literary Gazette 1824/Lament
Literary Gazette, 3rd January, 1824, Page 10
ORIGINAL POETRY.
FRAGMENTS BY L.E.L.
First Series.
Gleamings of poetry,—if I may give
That name of beauty, passion, and of grace,
To the wild thoughts that in a starlit hour,
In a pale twilight, or a rose-bud morn,
Glance o'er my spirit,—thoughts that are like light,
Or love, or hope, in their effects.
LAMENT FOR THE PAST YEAR.
Farewell, thou shadowy Year, farewell!
My heart feels light that thou art gone;
That last star was thy burial light,
That passing wind thy funeral moan.
Another year? It cannot be,
Surely, what thou hast been to me!
Twelve months ago I sat, as now;
Glorious was the blue midnight,
A glad sound came from many bells,
And never shone the stars more bright;
I thought the sky, so calm, so clear,
Might be an omen of the year.
False sky! false stars! showed they their light
But as in mockery to the eye,
That sought in their bright page to read
A something of its destiny?
Why looked they beauty, looked they hope,
On such a darkened horoscope!
For, not one warning shadow told
How many clouds were on the wind,
Of hopes that fell like autumn fruit,
Leaving the sapless boughs behind!
All that has been may be again,
And yet lives in my spirit's pain.
Now there is storm upon the sky.
The clouds hang heavy, as with care;
The stars have darkened one by one,
A moaning sound is on the air;
And be the year the worst to me,
’Tis but what I expect should be.
Come, thou new Year ! I doubt thy life
Will be such as thy birth has been,
Ended as it begun, in tears,
A desolate and darkened scene.
There is now but one only thing
Which I can wish, or thou canst bring.
A deep, a lone, a silent grave,
Is all I ask, dark Year, of thee;
To others hope and pleasure bring,
But only bring the grave to me!
The wearied heart, in its despair,
Will seek and find a haven there.