Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill Volume I/The Disturbing Spirit

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

CHAPTER XXXII.

DIFFERENT OPINIONS.

Doubt, despairing, crime, and craft,
Are upon that honied shaft.
It has made the crowned king
Crouch beneath his suffering;
Made the beauty's cheek more pale
Than the foldings of her veil:
Like a child the soldiers kneel,
Who had mocked at flame or steel;
Bade the fires of genius turn
On their own breasts; and there burn,
A wound, a blight, a curse, a doom,
Bowing young hearts to the tomb.
Well may storm be on the sky,
And the waters roll on high,
When that passion passes by:
Earth below, and heaven above,
Well may bend to thee, O Love!

Blanchard’s title is:

THE DISTURBING SPIRIT

From Manmadin, The Indian Cupid in The Improvisatrice, originally in The Literary Gazette, 14th December 1822