Poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Forget Me Not, 1825/The Ruined Cottage
Poetick Department
From "A New Year's Gift."
THE RUINED COTTAGE.
Oh there is
A deep, sweet feeling in the human heart,
Which makes life beautiful amid its thorns!
None will dwell in that cottage, for they say
Oppression reft it from the honest man,
And a curse clings to it: hence the vine
Trails its green weight of leaves upon the ground;
Hence weeds are in that garden: hence the hedge,
Once sweet with honeysuckle, is half dead:
And hence the grey moss on the apple tree.
One once dwelt there, who had been in his youth
A soldier; and when many years had past,
He sought his native village, and sat down
To end his days in peace. He had one child—
A little laughing thing, whose large dark eyes,
He said, were like the mother's she had left
Buried in stranger lands; and time went on
In comfort and content—and that fair girl
Had grown far taller than the red rose tree
Her father planted her first English birth-day.
And he had trained it up against an ash
Till it became his pride;—it was so rich
In blossom and in beauty, it was called
The tree of Isabel. 'Twas an appeal
To all the better feelings of the heart,
To mark their quiet happiness, their home— [1]
Their garden filled with fruits, and herbs, and flowers.
And in the winter there was no fireside
So cheerful as their own. But other days
And other fortunes came—an evil power.
They bore against it cheerfully, and hoped
For better times, but ruin came at last:
And the soldier left his own dear home.
And left it for a prison; 'twas in June,
One of June's brightest days—the bee, the bird,
The butterfly, were on their lightest wings;
The fruits had their first tinge of summer light;
The sunny sky, the very leaves seemed glad,
And the old man looked back upon his cottage
And wept aloud:—they hurried him away,
And the dear child that would not leave his side.
They led him from the sight of the blue heaven
And the green trees, into a low, dark cell,
The windows shutting out the blessed sun
With iron grating; and for the first time
He threw him on his bed, and could not hear
His Isabel's good night. But the next morn
She was the earliest at the prison gate,
The last on which it closed, and her sweet voice
And sweeter smile made him forget to pine.
She brought him every morning fresh wild flowers,
But every morning could he see her check
Grow paler and more pale, and her low tones
Get fainter and more faint, and a cold dew
Was on the hand he held. One day he saw
The sunshine through the grating of his cell,
Yet Isabel came not: at every sound
His heart-beat took away his breath, yet still
She came not near him. For but one sad day
He marked the dull street through the iron bars
That shut him from the world; at length he saw
A coffin carried carelessly along,
And he was desperate—he forced the bars;
And he stood in the street free and alone.
He had no aim, no wish for liberty—
He only felt one want, to see the corpse
That had no mourners; when they set it down,
Or ere 'twas lowered into the new-dug grave,
A rush of passion came upon his soul,
And he tore off the lid, and saw the face
Of Isabel, and knew he had no child!
He lay down by the coffin quietly—
His heart was broken!.....
L. E. L.
- ↑ a section of the original poem is here omitted, as follows:
In truth a home of love; and more than all,
To see them on the Sabbath, when they came
Among the first to church, and Isabel,
With her bright colour and her clear glad eyes
Bowed down so meekly in the house of prayer;
And in the hymn her sweet voice audible:
Her father looked so fond on her, and then
From her looked up so thankfully to Heaven!
And their cottage was so very neat;