Pulo Penang

Letitia Elizabeth Landon 1802 (Chelsea) – 1838 (Cape Coast)



The sail from Penang to Singapore presents the loveliest succession of scenery which ocean can produce. The sea is studded with tracts of fairy-land, glittering like emeralds in the golden sun, where the waving trees dip their long branches into the water; where the smooth sands are covered with shells, sparkling with all the hues of the prism. Birds, too, of Orient plumage, skim over the surface of the silver sea, or glance in and out from groves laden with fruit and flowers. The ocean-land, linked by these flowery labyrinths, retains its tranquillity even during the summer tempests.

Never—that fairy isle can be
    No lengthened resting-place of mine;
I love it dearest when I see
    Its shadow lengthen on the brine:
And then my heart with softness fills;
    I think upon its palmy groves,
I hear the murmur of its rills,
    I hear the singing of its doves.

I see the white catalpa bend,
    As when beneath thy whiter hand,
The buds in snowy showers descend,
    To wreath for thy dark hair a band:
And then I sigh to be on shore,
    To linger languid at thy side,
I think that I will part no more
    From thee, my own, my idol bride.

Oh, only those who part can know
    How dear the love that absence brings;
O’er wind and wave my fancies go,
    As if my very heart had wings:
And yet, when listless on the land,
    Impatient in my happiness,
I long again to grasp my brand,
    Again I long the deck to press.

I love to see my red flag sweep;
    I love to see my sabre shine;
Almost as much I love the deep
    As I love those sweet eyes of thine.
I bring thee treasures from afar;
    For thy dear sake I sweep the sea;
But for the honour won in war,
    I should be too unworthy thee.
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Submitted by Madeleine Quinn on February 26, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:33 min read
16

Quick analysis:

Scheme A BCACAAAA DEDEFGFG HAHAEAEA ICICXAFB
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,694
Words 313
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 1, 8, 8, 8, 8

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was an English poet. Born 14th August 1802 at 25 Hans Place, Chelsea, she lived through the most productive period of her life nearby, at No.22. A precocious child with a natural gift for poetry, she was driven by the financial needs of her family to become a professional writer and thus a target for malicious gossip (although her three children by William Jerdan were successfully hidden from the public). In 1838, she married George Maclean, governor of Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast, whence she travelled, only to die a few months later (15th October) of a fatal heart condition. Behind her post-Romantic style of sentimentality lie preoccupations with art, decay and loss that give her poetry its characteristic intensity and in this vein she attempted to reinterpret some of the great male texts from a woman’s perspective. Her originality rapidly led to her being one of the most read authors of her day and her influence, commencing with Tennyson in England and Poe in America, was long-lasting. However, Victorian attitudes led to her poetry being misrepresented and she became excluded from the canon of English literature, where she belongs. more…

All Letitia Elizabeth Landon poems | Letitia Elizabeth Landon Books

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