Poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in The Juvenile Forget Me Not, 1837/Dry Feet

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The plate, which shows a young girl carrying a dog over a streamlet, cannot at
present be sourced.

WET FEET

Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds⁠Engraved by C. Rolls

As F. J. Sypher comments, the artist shows the girl with ‘Wet Feet’, whereas, for
Landon, the dog has ‘Dry Feet’.

Text transcribed from F. J. Sypher’s ‘Poems from Annuals’

DRY FEET

You do not like the streamlet,
    That runs so clear and bright;
I scarcely think it water,
    It looks so much like light.

Some white, and others purple,
    The pebbles glitter through;
I can’t pick up those pebbles,
    If I must carry you.

There are such lovely wild-flowers
    Amid the tangled grass;
The little deep-blue bird’s eye
    Looks at me as I pass.

But they must stay ungathered,
    Though the very air is sweet,
Because my sad spoilt Fanchette
    Dislikes to wet her feet,

Half laughing, half complaining
    On went the dark-eyed girl,
While the soft warm airs of summer
    Played amid each bright brown curl.

The dog was carried over,
    Her own feet wet and bare,
But of that the little rustic
    Took neither cold nor care.

’Twas a sweet and natural lesson
    For woman, ay, or man,
Of every slight disaster
    To make the best you can.