Landon in The Literary Gazette 1825/Solitude
Literary Gazette, 1st October, 1825, Page 636-637
THE SOLITUDE.
The young, the bright, the gay—the world is theirs;
But Solitude was made for withered hearts,
For memory, not hope. - - -
Before me now a dream is visible—
The very solitude that I would chuse
For mine own dwelling-place—in olden days
It was a convent, and the vestal pale,
Pale as the saint she worshipped, made the night
Musical with her lonely orisons:
'Tis now in ruins; and the trembling walls
Owe half their substance to the dark grey moss
And ivy, which, as if in late remorse,
Support the wreck they aided time to make.
From the dim cloisters is no distant view;
The girdling pines shut out the world around;
There is no other noise than their old boughs
Sweeping with a strange melancholy sound, like speech,
But inarticulate as oracles
In the mysterious and holy woods
Of ancient days; and in their murmurings
I'll fancy omens telling my own fate,
Gloomy as their own voices are. There is
A cell yet standing, which should be mine own,
Where I would weep the midnight hours away:
The ivy thro' the broken lattice bars
Has stolen, as sorrow steals, and twined its leaves
Over the walls, and let the dead ones fall
On the stone floor—a drear, but fitting couch:
It opens on the chapel. Yet is left
In the old windows one or two rich panes—
I would they were not there, the purple light
Is too like Hope's, and I have done with hope.
But there is one pane, amid broken ones,
As if too beautiful to be destroyed,
Bearing the impress of a maiden Saint—
I will kneel down and worship it, when night
Comes in the deep religion of repose,
Silence and darkness, and the heart, opprest
In its own feelings, seeks some other world
To which it may confide the cares of this,
And sends up prayers from instinct more than duty.
Then, thou sweet saint! when the pale moonlight fills
Thine eyes with light as they were animate
With life and pity, I will kneel to thee there.
There was one once on earth, tho' now in heaven,
So very like thee, I can well believe
In praying thee I pray a guardian spirit—
Mine own Ianthe! mine, now that the grave,
Saving thy memory, has all of thee.
Will not thine influence be on the heart
That would have chastened feelings, holy thoughts,
Only that it may share thy heaven with thee? - -
- - - The garden is a wilderness, and filled
With trees degenerate from their cultured growth,
And covered with white snowdrops, like a shrowd:
The only flower remaining, cold and pale
And without scent, as a heart without hope.
In the midst is a fountain choked with weeds,
The fallen crucifix there lies concealed—
I'd rear it up again and clear the fount,
And set the waters flowing, and would dig
My grave beside, for it would be like sleep
To die soothed by the lulling of their fall:
It would not be such utter solitude
In my last hour, if I could pass away
In hearing of their sweet familiar sound.
Iole.