Landon in The Literary Gazette 1822/Love touching the Horns of a Snail, which is shrinking from his hand
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Literary Gazette, 3rd August 1822, Page 487
ORIGINAL POETRY.
Sketches from Designs by Mr. Dagley.
Sketch the Second.
Love touching the Horns of a Snail, which is
shrinking from his hand.
Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.
Oh, you have wronged me!—but, or e'er I tell
How deep I feel the injury, I will
One moment linger o'er the things which were
Precious as happiness; I will just say,
For the last time, how I have loved you! All
My hopes in life dwelt with you, for you were
The centre of existence; all I said.
Or did, or thought, had reference to you.
I would have shared the bleakest poverty
With you, and only sorrowed for your sake;
I would have given up all the world could give
Of pleasure for you—and your kiss, your smile
To me had been light, mirth, and revelry.
You had my soul's first incense, for my heart
Had never darkened with love's conscious shadow,
Till you did set your image like a seal
Upon its every fibre. Oh, I could
Have borne with open shame, with pain, with toil;
Have drained the veriest dregs of bitterness—
But cannot bear unkindness and neglect.
Thrice venomed is the wound when 'tis Love's hand
Inflicts the blow. Look on this picture—here
Are all my feelings imaged! Mark how soon,
How sensitive that creature shrinks away
From Love's rude touch, within its own calm home.
‘Tis thus my soul's revealings have been checked,
And forced to shrink within themselves again,
And I might envy even that "cockled" Snail:
It will find in its shell a quiet rest—
But when my feelings turn unto the heart
That sent them forth, what will they find there but
A desert, where the too impassioned past
Has left deep fiery traces! L. E. L.