Landon in The New Monthly 1825/Corinna
Corinna.
There is an antique gem on which her brow
Retains its graven beauty, even now:
Her hair is braided, but one curl behind
Floats as enamour'd of the summer wind;
The dress is simple, as she were too fair
To even think of beauty's own sweet care;
The lip and brow are contrasts, one so fraught
With pride, the melancholy pride of thought,
Conscious of its own power, yet forced to know
How very little way that power will go;
Regretting while too proud of the fine mind,
Which raises but to part it from its kind.—
But the sweet mouth had nothing of all this—
It was a mouth the bee had learnt to kiss,
For her young sister, telling though now mute,
How soft an echo it was to the lute.
The one spoke genius in its high revealing,
The other smiled a woman's gentler feeling.
It was a lovely face, the Greek outline
Flowing yet delicate and feminine.
The glorious lightning of the kindled eye,
Raised as it communed with its native sky;
A lovely face, the spirit's fitting shrine,
The one almost, the other quite divine. L. E. L.