Letitia Elizabeth Landon (Летиция Элизабет Лэндон)

The Village of the Lepers

Taken from the Account in the Literary Gazette.

There was a curse on the unhappy race—
They dwelt apart from all their fellow men—
Sad weary solitude! and every eye
Was turn'd away in loathing. I did pass
Thro' their lone village: silence brooded round,
And misery had set her withering stamp
On every brow; rayless and dim each eye.
And a wan sickly hue was on each face:
They had a look of hopeless wretchedness.
To them the voice of kindness was a sound

Unheard, unwish'd for; no one came to soothe
Their days of bitterness; proscribed, and left
Alone, to struggle with despair and pain:
Riven asunder all the blessed ties
Which are the hope and happiness of life;
Polluted, desolate, the cup of wrath
Had pour'd its utmost fury on their heads.
And there was one, whose image long hath dwelt,
Like to a thought of sorrow on my soul:
She had been beautiful, but now her cheek
Was deadly pale; and from her parched lip
The rose had fled, and left it colourless;
And in her eye, one same expression dwelt,
Of heartless, comfortless despondency!
Her brow was care-worn, blighted by the scathe
Of fell disease, which had destroy'd her prime,
And wither'd youth, when youth is loveliest.
She turn'd her from my look—the curious gaze,
To sorrow is a piercing mockery.

1. Lines to ——— (No, no! thou hast broken the spell that entwin'd me)
2. Ideal Likenesses. Ariadne
3. The Nameless Grave
4. Love’s Choice
5. The Reply of the Fountain

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