Good Readings: "The Festival" by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (in English)

The young and the lovely are gathered:

    Who shall talk of our wearisome life,

And dwell upon weeds and on weeping—

    The struggle, the sorrow, the strife?

The hours of our being are coloured,

    And many are coloured with rose;

Though on some be a sign and a shadow,

    I list not to speak now of those.

Through the crimson blind steals forth the splendour

    Of lamps, like large pearls which some fay

Has swelled with her breath till their lustre,

    If more soft, is as bright as of day.

Beneath the verandah are flowers—

    Camellias like ivory wrought

With the grace of a young Grecian sculptor,

    Who traced what some Oread brought;

And roses—the prodigal summer

    Has lavished upon them its bloom,—

O never the East with its spices

    Made altar so rich of perfume!

The bright crowd is mingling together—

    How gay is the music they bring!

The delicate laugh and the whisper—

    The steps that re-echo the string.

The harp to the flute is replying—

    'Tis the song of a far-distant land;

But never, in vineyard or valley,

    Assembled a lovelier band.

Come thou, with thy glad golden ringlets,

    Like rain which is lit by the sun—

With eyes, the bright spirit's bright mirrors—

    Whose cheek and the rose-bud are one.

While he of the lute and the laurel

    For thee has forgotten the throng,

And builds on thy fairy-like beauty

    A future of sigh and of song.

Ay, listen, but as unto music

    The wild wind is bearing away,

As sweet as the sea-shells at evening,

    But far too unearthly to stay.

For the love-dream that haunts the young poet

    Is coloured too much by his mind—

A fabric of fancy and falsehood,

    But never for lasting designed.

For he lives but in beauty—his visions

    Inspire with their passion his strain;

And the spirit so quick at impression

    Was never meant long to retain.

But another is passing before me—

    Oh, pause, let me gaze on thy brow;

I've seen thee, fair lady, thrice lovely,

    But never so lovely as now.

Thou art changed since those earlier numbers,

    When thou wert a vision to me;

And copies from some fairest picture,

    My heroines were painted from thee.

Thy cheek with its sunset of crimson,

    Like a rose crushed on ivory, bears

Its sunny smile still, but a softness

    Is now in the radiance it wears.

A halo of love is around thee,

    It is as if nature had willed

That thy happiness should be affection,

    And thy destiny now is fulfilled.

Be thou happy—a thousand times happy!

    If the gentle, the good, and the kind,

Could make of themselves an existence,

    How blessed a fate thou wouldst find!

For never their elements blended

    In a nature more lovely than thine;

And thy beauty is but a reflection

    Of what thine own heart is the shrine.

Farewell! I shall make thee no longer

    My sweet summer queen of romance;

No more will my princes pay homage,

    My knights for thy smile break the lance.

Confess they were exquisite lovers,

    The fictions that knelt at thy throne;

But the graceful, the gallant, the noble,

    What fancy could equal thine own?

Farewell! and henceforth I enshrine thee

    Mid the earlier dreams that have past

O'er my lute, like the fairies by moonlight,

    To leave it more lonely at last.

Alas! it is sad to remember

    The once gentle music now mute;

For many a chord hath time stolen

    Alike from my heart and my lute.

Ah, most of their memories are shadows,

    Flung down from the brightness of yore;

There are feelings for ever departed,

    And hopes that are treasures no more.

But thou livest only in music—

    A broken but beautiful spell;

'Tis as well, for my song has grown colder—

    Sweet lady, for ever farewell!

'Tis midnight—but think not of slumber,

    There are dreams enow floating around;

But ah, our soft dreams while thus waking

    Are aye the most dangerous found.

Like the note of a lute was that whisper—

    Fair girl, do not raise those dark eyes;

Love only could breathe such a murmur,

    And what will Love bring thee but sighs?

And thou, thou pale dreamer, whose forehead

    Is flushed with the circle's light praise,

O let it not dwell on thy spirit—

    How vain are the hopes it will raise!

The praise of the crowd and the careless,

    Just caught by a chance and a name,

O take it as pleasant and passing,

    But never mistake it for fame!

Look for fame from the toil of thy midnight,

    When thy rapt spirit eagle-like springs;

But for the glad, the gay, and the social,

    Take only the butterfly's wings.

The flowers around us are fading—

    Meet comrades for revels are they;

And the lamps overhead are decaying—

    How cold seems the coming of day!

There, fling off the wreath and the sandal,

    And bid the dark curtains round close;

For your cheek from the morning's tired slumber

    Must win its sweet exile the rose.

What, weary and saddened! this evening

    Is an earnest what all pleasures seem—

A few eager hours' enjoyment—

    A toil, a regret, and a dream!

⁠L. E. L.