Poems of Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in The Keepsake, 1833/The Adieu
THE ADIEU
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THE ADIEU.
BY L. E. L.
We'll miss her at the morning hour,
When leaves and eyes unclose;
When sunshine calls the dewy flower
To waken from repose;
For, like the singing of a bird,
When first the sunbeams fall,
The gladness of her voice was heard
The earliest of us all.
We'll miss her at the evening time,
For then her voice and lute
Best loved to sing some sweet old rhyme,
When other sounds were mute.—
Twined round the ancient window-seat,
While she was singing there,
The jasmine from outside would meet,
And wreathe her fragrant hair.
We'll miss her when we gather round
Our blazing hearth at night,
When ancient memories abound,
Or hopes where all unite;
And pleasant talk of years to come—
Those years our fancies frame.
Ah! she has now another home,
And bears another name.
Her heart is not with our old hall,
Nor with the things of yore;
And yet, methinks she must recall
What was so dear before.
She wept to leave the fond roof where
She had been loved so long,
Though glad the peal upon the air,
And gay the bridal throng.
Yes, memory has honey cells,
And some of them are ours,
For in the sweetest of them dwells
The dream of early hours.
The hearth, the hall, the window-seat,
Will bring us to her mind;
In yon wide world she cannot meet
All that she left behind.
Loved, and beloved, her own sweet will
It was that made her fate;
She has a fairy home—but still
Our own seems desolate.
We may not wish her back again,
Not for her own dear sake:
Oh! love, to form one happy chain,
How many thou must break!