Poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) from Flowers of Loveliness, 1838/The Iris
IRIS
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Transcribed from F. J. Sypher
THE IRIS
It boots not keeping back the scroll,
I know thy tender words,
(“My life, my idol, and my soul!”)
Its scented page affords.
There—give it me, that I may fling
Its fragments on the wind,
A faithless and a worthless thing
For such a fate designed.
What tho’ the Iris in my room
Bids Hope’s sweet promise live,
I take no lesson from its bloom,
I have no hope to give.
Soon, with the summer sun’s control,
Those azure leaves decay;
And yet the words on yonder scroll
Are more short-lived than they.
I care not for a love that springs
Where other fancies dwell,
The rainbow’s hue upon its wings,
The rainbow’s date as well;
By Vanity and Folly nurst:
Of happiness it dies:
It springeth from a fancy first,
And with a fancy flies.
Ay, let them prettily complain,
With graceful sorrow strive;
They should be glad of my disdain,
It keeps their love alive.
I gave the ribbon from my hair,
The blossom from my hand,
But I have not a thought to spare
For any of their band.
The love that haunts my midnight hour,
A dream—and yet, how true!
Belongs to a diviner power,
Than vanity e’er knew:
It giveth, like the pale pure star,
A loveliness to night,
And winneth from the world afar,
Its own eternal light.
It bringeth to our earth again
The heavens it dwells among:—
Not to the worldly and the vain
Can such a love belong:
High, holy as the heaven above,
Yet sharing life’s worst part,
Until I meet with such a love
I cannot give my heart.