Poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in The Literary Souvenir, 1828/Lost Star
THE LOST STAR.
I.
A light is gone from yonder sky,
A star has left its sphere;
The beautiful—and do they die
In yon bright world as here?
Will that star leave a lonely place,
A darkness on the night?—
No; few will miss its lovely face,
And none think heaven less bright!
II.
What wert thou star of?—vanished one!
What mystery was thine?
Thy beauty from the east is gone:
What was thy sway and sign?
Wert thou the star of opening youth?—
And is it then for thee,
Its frank glad thoughts, its stainless truth,
So early cease to be?
III.
Of Hope?—and was it to express
How soon hope sinks in shade;
Or else of human loveliness,
In sign how it will fade?
How was thy dying like the song,
In music to the last,
An echo flung the winds among,
And then for ever past?
IV.
Or didst thou sink as stars whose light
The fair moon renders vain?—
The rest shine forth the next dark night,
Thou didst not shine again.
Didst thou fade gradual from the time
The first great curse was hurled,
Till lost in sorrow and in crime,
Star of our early world!
V.
Forgotten and departed star!
A thousand glories shine
Round the blue midnight's regal car,
Who then remembers thine?
Save when some mournful bard like me
Dreams over beauty gone,
And in the fate that waited thee,
Reads what will be his own.
L. E. L.