Letitia Elizabeth Landon, English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L... (wikipedia)
We might have been, these are but common words, and yet they make the sum of life's bewailing
Love is a pearl of purest hue, / But stormy waves are round it; / And dearly may a woman rue, / The hour that she found it.
As beautiful as woman's blush, - / As evanescent too.
Ah tell me not that memory / Sheds gladness o'er the past; / What is recalled by faded flowers / Save that they did not last?