Mysterious death and a poem about Windleshaw Chantry

THIS poem is taken from Miss Landon's Poetical Works 1838

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born London, England. After her schooling in Chelsea, she began contributing to a weekly literary magazine called Literary Gazette, eventually becoming one of its editors. She published several poetry collections including The Fate of Adelaide and The Improvisatrice. In addition to poetry, L. E. L., as she was known to her readers, wrote several novels, although she always considered poetry her first literary language. Her gently romantic style was very popular at the time. She died in 1838 from an overdose of hydrocyanic acid, which is said ........to have been accidental.

Check out L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated "Female Byron"

which chronicles the scandalous life, short but brilliant career, and mysterious death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, one of the most notable writers of London's Romantic Age in the 1820s. During her brief tenure at the top of England's literary pyramid, L.E.L. was celebrated for her daring, her romanticism, and her passion, and her fans included the Brontës, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edgar Allan Poe, Heinrich Heine, and Virginia Woolf.

WINDLESHAW ABBEY

Mark you not yon sad procession,
'Mid the ruin'd abbey's gloom.
Hastening to the worm's possession,
To the dark and silent tomb!

See the velvet pall hangs over
Poor mortality's remains;
We should shudder to discover
What that coffin's space contains.

Death itself is lovely—wearing
But the colder shape of sleep;
Or the solemn statue bearing
Beauty that forbids to weep.

But decay—the pulses tremble
When its livid signs appear:
When the once-loved lips resemble
All we loathe, and all we fear.

Is it not a ghastly ending
For the body's godlike form,
Thus to the damp earth descending,
Food and triumph to the worm!

Better far the red pile blazing
With the spicy Indian wood,
Incense unto heaven raising
From the sandal oil's sweet flood.

In the bright pyre's kindling flashes,
Let my yielded soul ascend;
Fling to the wild winds my ashes
'Till with mother earth they blend.

Not so,—let the pale urn keep them;
Touch'd with spices, oil, and wine;
Let there be some one to weep them;

Wilt thou keep that urn? Love mine!