Love, Hope, And Beauty

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Love may be increased by fears,
May be fanned with sighs,
Nursed by fancies, fed by doubts;
But without Hope it dies!
As in the far Indian isles
Dies the young cocoa tree,
Unless within the pleasant shade
Of the parent plant it be;
So Love may spring up at first
Lighted at Beauty's eyes: --
But Beauty is not all its life,
For without Hope it dies.