Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill Volume I/The Disturbing Spirit

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2475111Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill, Volume I — The Disturbing SpiritLetitia Elizabeth Landon

CHAPTER XXXII.


DIFFERENT OPINIONS.


Doubt, despairing, crime, and craft,
Are upon that honied shaft.
It has made the crowned king
Crouch beneath his suffering;
Made the beauty's cheek more pale
Than the foldings of her veil:
Like a child the soldiers kneel,
Who had mocked at flame or steel;
Bade the fires of genius turn
On their own breasts; and there burn,
A wound, a blight, a curse, a doom,
Bowing young hearts to the tomb.
Well may storm be on the sky,
And the waters roll on high,
When that passion passes by:
Earth below, and heaven above,
Well may bend to thee, O Love!



Blanchard’s title is:

THE DISTURBING SPIRIT

From Manmadin, The Indian Cupid in The Improvisatrice, originally in The Literary Gazette, 14th December 1822