To
understand the poem "Love's Last Lesson," it is useful to know something about its
author, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, who usually published her poetry using only her initials
L.E.L. She was a precocious child and published her first poems when she was still a teen. For
the era in which she lived, her personal life was quite scandalous. She had numerous affairs,
and even gave birth to several children that she gave up to adoption. She died at the age of 36
holding a bottle of prussic acid, a poison which she may have been taking in diluted form as a
medical remedy for an ongoing malady.
"Love's Last Lesson" is a
poem about unrequited love. The narrator relates that she fell deeply in love with a man and she
hoped that he loved her too. If she had "been mistress of the starry worlds" she would
have given them all to him. However, the man said that he did not love her. He was, she writes,
caught up in ambition, pride, and power, and didn't care "what lovely flowers might perish
in his...
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