Little Red Riding Hood

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



LINES SUGGESTED BY THE ENGRAVING OF LANDSEER’S PICTURE.

Come back, come back together,
    All ye fancies of the past,
Ye days of April weather,
    Ye shadows that are cast
By the haunted hours before!
    Come back, come back, my childhood;
Thou art summoned by a spell
    From the green leaves of the wild wood,
From beside the charmed well!
    'Tis Red Riding-Hood, the darling,
    The flower of fairy lore.

The fields were covered over
    With colours, as she went;
Daisy, buttercup, and clover,
    Below her footsteps bent.
Summer shed its shining store,
    She was happy as she prest them
Beneath her little feet;
    She plucked them and caress'd them.
They were so very sweet—
    They had never seemed so sweet before,
To Red Riding-Hood, the darling,
    The flower of fairy lore.

How the heart of childhood dances
    Upon a sunny day!
It has its own romances,
    And a wide, wide world have they!
A world where phantasie is king,
    Made all of eager dreaming;
When once grown up and tall,
    Now is the time for scheming,
Then we shall do them all!
    Do such pleasant fancies spring
For Red Riding-Hood the darling,
    The flower of fairy lore?

She seems like an ideal love,—
    The poetry of childhood shown,
And yet loved with a real love,
    As if she were our own;
A younger sister for the heart;
Like the young pheasant,
    Her hair is brown and bright,
And her smile is pleasant—
    With its rosy light.
Never can the memory part,
With red Riding-Hood the darling,
    The flower of fairy lore.

Did the painter, dreaming
    In a morning hour,
Catch the fairy seeming
    Of this fairy flower?
Winning it with eager eyes—
From the old enchanted stories,
    Lingering with a long delight
On the unforgotten glories
    Of the infant sight?
Giving us a sweet surprise
In red Riding-Hood the darling,
The flower of fairy lore?

Too long in the meadow staying,
    Where the cowslip bends,
With the buttercups delaying
    As with early friends,
Did the little maiden stay.
Sorrowful the tale for us—
    We too loiter mid life's flowers,
A little while so glorious,
    So soon lost in darker hours.
All love lingering on their way,
Like red Riding-Hood the darling,
The flower of fairy lore.
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Submitted by Madeleine Quinn on February 04, 2020

Modified on April 18, 2023

1:53 min read
101

Quick analysis:

Scheme a ababcdedefC agagchihicfC xjxjffkfkffC lmlmnopopnfC fafaqrprpqfC fsfsjtutujfC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 2,232
Words 377
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 1, 11, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12

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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