Landon in The Literary Gazette 1824/Stars
Literary Gazette, 30th October, 1824, Pages 701
ORIGINAL POETRY.
THE STARS.
Last night I by my casement leant,
And looked on the bright firmament;
And marked a group of stars, which met,
Almost as if on purpose set
Together for their loveliness,—
As sisters round each other press.
I thought how fair they had seemed to me,
If I had gazed on them with thee:
Never do I so wish thee near,
As when somewhat of fair and dear
Is by me—when the night wind, sighing,
Amid a thousand flowers is dying;
When the young rosebud I have nurst,
Opens its crimson beauty first;—
When the sweet bird that I have cherished,
Since so near in the snow it perished,
Pours to the violets of May
The music of its earliest lay;—
When I have paused upon some thought
Found in the minstrel page, and fraught
With Love's aroma—how my heart
Has treasured up for thee a part
In its rejoicing—pined for thee,
To share in its felicity.
Alas! my spirit sinks to-night;
Oh, absence is as love's twilight!
When the eye sees, or thinks it sees,
In the grey boughs, the waving trees,
Ten thousand flitting shapes pass by,
Yet none perhaps reality:
And thus, in absence, will the lover
Ten thousand feverish shapes discover;
And not a care, and not a pain,
But fills the heart and racks the brain.
Beautiful stars! in other days
The prophet's eye might read your rays;
And tell of many a strange event,
Of warfare, and of warning sent.
I would not wish to know the fate
Of purple crown or royal state.
The stars might show to other eyes
Their deep and mighty mysteries—
Enough for me to know them fair,
And read my lover's safety there.L. E. L.