Alexander And Phillip

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



HE stood by the river's side
A conqueror and a king,
None match'd his step of pride
Amid the armed ring.
And a heavy echo rose from the ground,
As a thousand warriors gather'd round.
And the morning march had been long,
And the noontide sun was high,
And weariness bow'd down the strong,
And heat closed every eye;
And the victor stood by the river's brim
Whose coolness seem'd but made for him.

The cypress spread their gloom
Like a cloak from the noontide beam,
He flung back his dusty plume,
And plunged in the silver stream;
He plunged like the young steed, fierce and wild,
He was borne away like the feeble child.

They took the king to his tent
From the river's fatal banks,
A cry of terror went
Like a storm through the Grecian ranks:
Was this the fruit of their glories won,
Was this the death for AMMON'S son?

Many a leech heard the call,
But each one shrank away;
For heavy upon all
Was the weight of fear that day:
When a thought of treason, a word of death,
Was in each eye, and on each breath.

But one with the royal youth
Had been from his earliest hour,
And he knew that his heart was truth,
And he knew that his hand was power;
He gave what hope his skill might give,
And bade him trust to his faith and live.

ALEXANDER took the cup,
And from beneath his head a scroll,
He drank the liquor up,
And bade PHILLIP read the roll;
And PHILLIP look'd on the page, where shame,
Treason, and poison were named with his name.

An angry flush rose on his brow,
And anger darken'd his eye,
What I have done I would do again now!
If you trust my fidelity.
The king watch'd his face, he felt he might dare
Trust the faith that was written there.

Next day the conqueror rose
From a greater conqueror free;
And again he stood amid those
Who had died his death to see:
He stood there proud of the lesson he gave
That faith and trust were made for the brave.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:52 min read
58

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCCDEDEFF GHGHII JKJKLL MNMNOO PQPQXX RSRSTT UEUVWW XVXVYY
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,811
Words 362
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 12, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6

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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