Delicious tears! The heart's own dew.

“Delicious tears! The heart’s own dew.” — thus wrote Letitia Elizabeth Landon, poet of the Romantic age, whose words shimmered with both tenderness and tragedy. In this brief exclamation, she reveals a paradox as old as humanity itself: that tears, though born of sorrow, possess a strange sweetness. They are the dew of the soul, falling not merely from grief, but from the fullness of feeling — from love, memory, compassion, and reverence. When the heart can bear no more, it releases its truth in the language of tears. And so Landon, who herself knew much of the world’s pain and its fragile beauty, called them “delicious” — for they cleanse, they soothe, and they make sacred what words cannot.

To the ancients, tears were not weakness but offering. The Greeks believed that to weep was to honor the gods; the Persians said tears were the “wine of the heart.” In the East, the sages taught that sorrow purifies, that through tears the soul returns to its natural clarity. What Landon calls “the heart’s own dew” is this very purification — as morning dew renews the flower, so tears renew the spirit. A heart that never weeps is like a field without rain: it may stand strong for a time, but it will wither in the drought of unfeeling. Thus, tears are the sign not of frailty, but of life — proof that love still flows, that empathy still breathes within us.

Letitia Landon herself, often known by her pen name L.E.L., lived in an age that demanded women hide their emotions behind poise and decorum. Yet through her poetry, she dared to unveil the hidden world of the heart. Her life was one of brilliance shadowed by loneliness, and she understood that sorrow, when transformed into art, becomes beauty itself. Her tears were not wasted; they became her verses, shimmering like dew upon the leaves of her readers’ souls. By calling them “delicious,” she reclaims grief from shame, reminding us that even pain, when honestly felt, can be nourishing.

Consider also the story of Mary Magdalene, who washed the feet of Christ with her tears. The world had judged her, yet it was through those tears — through humility, through the surrender of the heart — that she found redemption. Her tears were not bitter, but holy; they were “the heart’s own dew,” falling upon the dust to make it clean. Like Landon’s vision, they show that sorrow, when born of love, is not corruption but renewal. Every true tear carries both the salt of loss and the sweetness of grace.

In this way, Landon’s quote becomes a hymn to emotional truth. She tells us that our tears are part of the sacred rhythm of being human — the ebb and flow of the soul’s tides. To suppress them is to deny ourselves wholeness. When we allow ourselves to feel fully, we are washed of bitterness and made tender once more. Just as dew descends upon the earth to prepare it for sunrise, so tears prepare the heart for joy. They are not to be feared, but welcomed — a gentle alchemy that turns sorrow into strength, and pain into peace.

But let it also be known: not all tears are sorrowful. Some are tears of love, of awe, of wonder. The mother holding her newborn, the old man remembering a vanished youth, the pilgrim beholding a vision of beauty — their tears, too, are “delicious,” for they spring from hearts overflowing. Landon’s words remind us that in both joy and grief, we find the same sacred source: the heart that dares to feel. The dew of emotion falls alike upon the garden of laughter and the field of mourning; in both, it nourishes life.

So, my child, take this lesson as the ancients would have given it: do not harden your heart against your tears. When sorrow comes, let it flow through you; when joy overwhelms, let it spill over. In those moments, you touch what is most divine in yourself — the power to feel deeply and live authentically. Guard not your tears as weakness, but treasure them as wisdom. For they are the heart’s own dew, the gentle proof that even in our pain, we are still capable of beauty. And when the storm has passed, and your eyes are clear again, you will find — as Landon did — that the soul, washed in tears, glows brighter in the dawn.