Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill Volume III/Earth Leads to Heaven

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

CHAPTER IV.

ASKING FOR AN INVITATION.

This is a weary and a wretched life,
With nothing to redeem it but the heart.
Affection, earth's great purifier, stirs
Our embers into flame, and that ascends.
All finer natures walk this bitter world
But for a while, then Heaven asks its own,
And we can but remember and regret.

Blanchard’s title is:

EARTH LEADS TO HEAVEN

In The New York Mirror (24th March 1838), as Affection