An unusual ode to Qutb Shahi tombs from a British poetess who never visited Golconda

Salma Ahmed Farooqui On a pleasant winter morning in early December last year, I was invited to visit the Qutb Shahi Tombs by the authorities of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture to see the ongoing restoration process at the site in the company of friends and likeminded persons. It was a special occasion for me for it was the first time I could see the  Murda Darwaza  (Door for the dead) that connected the Golconda fort and the Qutb Shahi necropolis after the removal of several layers of mounds of earth. This arched doorway, although not yet opened, is supposed to have been the channel to carry the dead bodies of the royalty and their close associates from their imperial chambers in the fort for the customary funeral bath and burial at the tombs complex.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon would have been a happy person to know about the sighting of this doorway. A young English poet, L.E.L., as she was popularly known lived briefly from 1802 to 1838. Having penned the poem titled  The Tombs of the Kings of Golconda,  L.E.L. is not a well-known figure in literary circles as she preferred to remain anonymous in many of her works.
A highly unusual factor in her poem is that she wrote it without physically visiting the site ever. Obviously, she was mighty impressed with what she had read about the Tombs. It appears that at first she drew a picture of the place in her mind and then transported it to the paper. This may be because even till date there is no necropolis in the world where almost all the kings of a dynasty are buried.
The Tombs of the Kings of Golconda  forms a part of the collection of  The Zenana and minor poems  of L.E.L. first published in 1839 and presently rests in the famed archival collection of the Oxford University, United Kingdom. Fisher in his  Drawing Room Scrap Book  in 1838, Robert Sears in his  The Wonders of the World—Nature, Art and Mind  in 1856, and Henry Longfellow in his  Poems of Places: Asia  in 1878 reproduced L.E.L’s ode on Golconda.
With an introduction by Emma Roberts, the collection comprises little books that are valuable mines of literary treasure written on various faraway lands. L.E.L. as Emma Roberts says, “not only read, but thoroughly understood, and entered into the merits of every book that came out.” …….. “The history and literature of all ages and all countries were familiar to L.E.L; nor did she acquire any portion of her knowledge in a superficial manner; the extent of her learning, and the depth of her research, manifesting themselves in publications which do not bear her name; her claim to them being only known to friends, who, like myself, had access to her desk, and with whom she knew the secret might be safely trusted.” The Tombs of the Kings of Golconda Morning is round the shining palace, Mirrored on the tide, Where the lily lifts her chalice, With its gold inside. Like an offering from the waves.