Revenge

Revenge

Original Text

The Poetical Works of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, ed. William B. Scott (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1873), p. 326 (facs. edn.: Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars' Facsimiles, 1990). PR 4865 L5A17 1990 c.1 ROBA.

1Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreath'd hair,
2  And gaze upon her smile;
3Seem as you drank the very air
4  Her breath perfumed the while;
5And wake for her the gifted line,
6  That wild and witching lay,
7And swear your heart is as a shrine,
8  That only holds her sway.
9'Tis well: I am revenged at last;--
10  Mark you that scornful cheek,--
11The eye averted as you pass'd,
12  Spoke more than words could speak.
13Ay, now by all the bitter tears
14  That I have shed for thee,--
15The racking doubts, the burning fears,--
16  Avenged they well may be--
17By the nights pass'd in sleepless care,
18  The days of endless woe;
19All that you taught my heart to bear,
20  All that yourself will know.
21I would not wish to see you laid
22  Within an early tomb;
23I should forget how you betray'd,
24  And only weep your doom:
25But this is fitting punishment,
26  To live and love in vain,--
27O my wrung heart, be thou content,
28  And feed upon his pain.
29Go thou and watch her lightest sigh,--
30  Thine own it will not be;
31And bask beneath her sunny eye,--
32  It will not turn on thee.
33'Tis well: the rack, the chain, the wheel,
34  Far better hadst thou proved;
35Ev'n I could almost pity feel,
36  For thou art not beloved.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme