Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill Volume I/The Poet’s Lot

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

CHAPTER XVI.

A LONDON LIFE.

The poet's lovely faith creates
    The beauty he believes;
The light which on his footsteps waits,
    He from himself receives.

His lot may be a weary lot;
    His thrall a heavy thrall;
And cares and griefs the crowd know not,
    His heart may know them all:

But still he hath a mighty dower,
    The loveliness that throws
Over the common thought and hour
    The beauty of the rose.

Blanchard’s title is:

THE POET’S LOT

In The New York Mirror (3rd March 1838)
and in The New Yorker (24th March 1838), both as The Poet’s Consolation

This is an extract from the Introduction in Fisher’s Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835