Landon in The Literary Gazette 1829/Change 2
16
Literary Gazette, 9th May, 1829, Pages 308-309
ORIGINAL POETRY.
CHANGE.
We say that people and that things are changed;
Alas! it is ourselves that change: the heart
Makes all around the mirror of itself.
Where are the flowers, the beautiful flowers,
That haunted your homes and your hearts in the spring?
Where is the sunshine of earlier hours?
Where is the music the birds used to bring?
Where are the flowers?—why, thousands are springing,
And many fair strangers are sweet on the air;
And the birds to the sunshine their welcome are singing—
Look round on our valley, and then question "Where?"
Alas, my heart's darkness! I own it is summer,
Though little 'tis like what it once used to be:
I have no welcome to give the new-comer;
Strangely the summer seems altered to me.
'Tis my spirits are wasted—my hopes that are weary;
These made the gladness and beauty of yore:
To the worn and the withered even sunshine is dreary,
And the year has its spring, though our own is no more.
L. E. L.