Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1838/The Ionian Captive
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THE IONIAN CAPTIVE.
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THE IONIAN CAPTIVE.
Sadly the captive o'er the flowers is bending,
While her soft eye with sudden sorrow fills;
They are not those that grew beneath her tending
In the green valley of her native hills.
There is the violet—not from the meadow
Where wandered carelessly her childish feet;
There is the rose—it grew not in the shadow
Of her old home—it cannot be so sweet.
And yet she loves them—for those flowers are bringing
Dreams of the home that she will see no more;
The languid perfumes are around her, flinging
What almost for the moment they restore.
She hears her mother's wheel, that slowly turning
Murmured unceasingly the summer day;
And the stone murmur, when the pine-boughs burning
Told that the summer-hours had passed away.
She hears her young companions sadly singing
A song they loved—an old complaining tune;
Then comes a gayer sound—the laugh is ringing
Of the young children—hurrying in at noon.
By the dim myrtles, wandering with her sister,
They tell old stories, broken by the mirth
Of her young brother: alas! have they missed her,
She who was borne a captive from their hearth?
She starts—too present grows the actual sorrow,
By her own heart she knows what they have borne;
Young as she is, she shudders at to-morrow,
It can but find her prisoner and forlorn.
What are the glittering trifles that surround her—
What the rich shawl—and what the golden chain—
Would she could break the fetters that have bound her,
And see her household and her hills again!