Letitia Elizabeth Landon: Verses about London

I PRAY thee lay me not to rest
Among these mouldering bones;
Too heavily the earth is prest
By all these crowded stones.

Life is too gay—life is too near—
With all its pomp and toil;
I pray thee do not lay me here,
In such a world-struck soil.

The ceaseless roll of wheels would wake
The slumbers of the dead;
I cannot bear for life to make
Its pathway o'er my head.

The flags around are cold and drear,
They stand apart, alone;
And no one ever pauses here,
To sorrow for the gone.

No: lay me in the far green fields
The summer sunshine cheers;
And where the early wild flower yields
The tribute of its tears.

Where shadows the sepulchral yew,
Where droops the willow tree,
Where the long grass is filled with dew—
Oh! make such grave for me!

And passers-by, at evening's close,
Will pause beside the grave,
And moralize o'er the repose
They fear, and yet they crave.

Perhaps some kindly hand may bring
Its offering to the tomb;
And say, As fades the rose in spring,
So fadeth human bloom.

But here there is no kindly thought
To soothe, and to relieve;
No fancies and no flowers are brought,
That soften while they grieve.

Here Poesy and Love come not—
It is a world of stone;
The grave is bought—is closed—forgot!
And then life hurries on.

Sorrow and beauty—nature—love—
Redeem man's common breath;
Ah! let them shed the grave above—
Give loveliness to death.

HE stands within the silent square,
That square of state, of gloom;
A heavy weight is on the air,
Which hangs as o'er a tomb.

It is a tomb which wealth and rank
Have built themselves around—
The general sympathies have shrank
Like flowers on high dry ground.

None heed the wandering boy who sings,
An orphan though so young;
None think how far the singer brings
The songs which he has sung.

None cheer him with a kindly look,
None with a kindly word;
The singer's little pride must brook
To be unpraised, unheard.

At home their sweet bird he was styled,
And oft, when days were long,
His mother called her favourite child
To sing her favourite song.

He wanders now through weary streets,
Till cheek and eye are dim;
How little sympathy he meets,

Sudden his dark brown cheek grows bright
His dark eyes fill with glee,
Covered with blossoms snowy-white,
He sees an orange tree.

No more the toil-worn face is pale,
Nor faltering step is sad;
He sees his distant native vale,
He sees it, and is glad.

He sees the squirrel climb the pine,
The doves fly through the dell,
The purple clusters of the vine;
He hears the vesper-bell.

His heart is full of hope and home,
Toil, travel, are no more;
And he has happy hours to come
Beside his father's door.

Oh, charm of natural influence!
But for thy lovely ties,
Never might the world-wearied sense
Above the present rise.

Blessed be thy magic every where,
Oh Nature, gentle mother;
How kindlier is for us thy care,
Than ours is for each other.

LIFE in its many shapes was there,
The busy and the gay;
Faces that seemed too young and fair
To ever know decay.

Wealth, with its waste, its pomp, and pride,
Led forth its glittering train;
And poverty's pale face beside
Asked aid, and asked in vain.

The shops were filled from many lands,
Toys, silks, and gems, and flowers;
The patient work of many hands,
The hope of many hours.

Yet, mid life's myriad shapes around
There was a sigh of death;
There rose a melancholy sound,
The bugle's wailing breath.

They played a mournful Scottish air,
That on its native hill
Had caught the notes the night-winds bear
From weeping leaf and rill.

'Twas strange to hear that sad wild strain
Its warning music shed,
Rising above life's busy train,
In memory of the dead.

There came a slow and silent band
In sad procession by:
Reversed the musket in each hand,
And downcast every eye.

They bore the soldier to his grave;
The sympathyzing crowd
Divided like a parted wave
By some dark vessel ploughed.

A moment, and all sounds were mute,
For awe was over all;
You heard the soldier's measured foot,
The bugle's wailing call.

The gloves were laid upon the bier,
The helmet and the sword,
The drooping war-horse followed near,
As he, too, mourned his lord.

Slowly—I followed too—they led
To where a church arose,
And flung a shadow o'er the dead,
Deep as their own repose.

Green trees were there—beneath the shade
Of one, was made a grave;
And there to his last rest was laid
The weary and the brave.

They fired a volley o'er the bed
Of an unconscious ear;
The birds sprang fluttering overhead,
Struck with a sudden fear.

All left the ground, the bugles died
Away upon the wind;
Only the tree's green branches sighed
O'er him they left behind.

Again, all filled with light and breath,
I passed the crowded street—
Oh, great extremes of life and death,
How strangely do ye meet!

THE sun is on the crowded street,
It kindles those old towers;
Where England's noblest memories meet,
Of old historic hours.

Vast, shadowy, dark, and indistinct,
Tradition's giant fane,
Whereto a thousand years are linked,
In one electric chain.

So stands it when the morning light
First steals upon the skies;
And shadow'd by the fallen night,
The sleeping city lies.

It stands with darkness round it cast,
Touched by the first cold shine;
Vast, vague, and mighty as the past,
Of which it is the shrine.

'Tis lovely when the moonlight falls
Around the sculptured stone
Giving a softness to the walls,
Like love that mourns the gone.

Then comes the gentlest influence
The human heart can know,
The mourning over those gone hence
To the still dust below.

The smoke, the noise, the dust of day,
Have vanished from the scene;
The pale lamps gleam with spirit ray
O'er the park's sweeping green.

Sad shining on her lonely path,
The moon's calm smile above,
Seems as it lulled life's toil and wrath
With universal love.

Past that still hour, and its pale moon,
The city is alive;
It is the busy hour of noon,
When man must seek and strive.

The pressure of our actual life
Is on the waking brow;
Labour and care, endurance, strife,
These are around him now.

How wonderful the common street,
Its tumult and its throng,
The hurrying of the thousand feet
That bear life's cares along.

How strongly is the present felt,
With such a scene beside;
All sounds in one vast murmur melt
The thunder of the tide.

All hurry on—none pause to look
Upon another's face:
The present is an open book
None read, yet all must trace.

The poor man hurries on his race,
His daily bread to find;
The rich man has yet wearier chase,
For pleasure's hard to bind.

All hurry, though it is to pass
For which they live so fast—
What doth the present but amass,
The wealth that makes the past.

The past is round us—those old spires
That glimmer o'er our head;
Not from the present is their fires,
Their light is from the dead.

But for the past, the present's powers
Were waste of toil and mind;
But for those long and glorious hours
Which leave themselves behind.