University of Virginia Library

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS,

BY CHARLES LAMB. HITHERTO UNCOLLECTED. (1796–1832.)

ON BEING ASKED TO WRITE IN MISS WESTWOOD'S ALBUM.

My feeble Muse, that fain her best would
Write, at command of Frances Westwood,
But feels her wits not in their best mood,
Fell lately on some idle fancies,
As she's much given to romances,
About this self-same style of Frances;
Which seems to be a name in common
Attributed to man or woman.
She thence contrived this flattering moral,
With which she hopes no soul will quarrel,
That she, whom this twin title decks,
Combines what's good in either sex;
Unites—how very rare the case is!—
Masculine sense to female graces;
And, quitting not her proper rank,
Is both in one—Fanny and frank.

LINES ADDRESSED TO LIEUT. R. W. H. HARDY, R.N.,

ON THE PERUSAL OF HIS VOLUME OF TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR OF MEXICO.

'Tis pleasant, lolling in our elbow-chair,
Secure at home, to read descriptions rare
Of venturous traveller in savage climes;
His hair-breadth 'scapes, toil, hunger—and sometimes
The merrier passages that, like a foil
To set off perils past, sweetened that toil,
And took the edge from danger; and I look
With such fear-mingled pleasure through thy book,
Adventurous Hardy! Thou a diver art,
But of no common form; and, for thy part
Of the adventure, hast brought home to the nation
Pearls of discovery—jewels of observation.

THE FIRST LEAF OF SPRING.

WRITTEN ON THE FIRST LEAF OF A LADY'S ALBUM.

Thou fragile, filmy, gossamery thing,
First leaf of spring!
At every lightest breath that quakest,
And with a zephyr shakest;
Scarce stout enough to hold thy slender form together
In calmest halcyon weather:
Next sister to the web that spiders weave,
Poor flutterers to deceive
Into their treacherous silken bed:
O! how art thou sustained, how nourishëd!
All trivial as thou art,
Without dispute,
Thou play'st a mighty part;
And art the herald to a throng
Of buds, blooms, fruit,
That shall thy cracking branches sway,
While birds on every spray
Shall pay the copious fruitage with a sylvan song.
So 'tis with thee, whoe'er on thee shall look,
First leaf of this beginning modest book.
Slender thou art, God knowest,
And little grace bestowest,
But in thy train shall follow after,
Wit, wisdom, seriousness, in hand with laughter;
Provoking jests, restraining soberness,
In their appropriate dress;
And I shall joy to be outdone
By those who brighter trophies won,
Without a grief,
That I thy slender promise have begun,
First leaf.

THE APE.

To the Editor [of the “London Magazine”].

Mr. Editor,—The riddling lines which I send you, were written upon a young lady who, from her diverting sportiveness in childhood, was named by her friends The Ape. When the verses were written, L. M. had outgrown the title—but not the memory of it—being in her teens, and consequently past child-tricks. They are an endeavour to express that perplexity which one feels at any alteration, even supposed for the better, in a beloved object; with a little oblique grudging at Time, who cannot bestow new graces without taking away some portion of the older ones, which we can ill miss.

An Ape is but a trivial beast,
Men count it light and vain;
But I would let them have their thoughts,
To have my Ape again.
To love a beast in any sort
Is no great sign of grace;
But I have loved a flouting Ape's
'Bove any lady's face.
I have known the power of two fair eyes,
In smile or else in glance,
And how (for I a lover was)
They make the spirits dance;
But I would give two hundred smiles
Of them that fairest be,
For one look of my staring Ape
That used to stare on me.
This beast, this Ape, it had a face—
If face it might be styled—
Sometimes it was a staring Ape,
Sometimes a beauteous child—
A Negro flat—a Pagod squat,
Cast in a Chinese mould—
And then it was a Cherub's face
Made of the beaten gold!
But Time, that's meddling, meddling still,
And always altering things—
And what's already at the best
To alteration brings,
That turns the sweetest buds to flowers,
And chops and changes toys,
That breaks up dreams, and parts old friends,
And still commutes our joys—
Has changed away my Ape at last
And in its place conveyed,
Thinking therewith to cheat my sight,
A fresh and blooming maid!
And fair to sight is she—and still
Each day doth sightlier grow,
Upon the ruins of the Ape,
My ancient playfellow!
The tale of Sphinx, and Theban jests
I true in me perceive;
I suffer riddles; death from dark
Enigmas I receive:
Whilst a hid being I pursue,
That lurks in a new shape,
My darling in herself I miss,
And, in my ape, the ape.

PROLOGUE TO FAULKENER:

A TRAGEDY BY WILLIAM GODWIN, 1807.

TO THE POET COWPER, ON HIS RECOVERY FROM AN INDISPOSITION.

WRITTEN SOME TIME BACK.

Cowper, I thank my God that thou art healed.
Thine was the sorest malady of all,
And I am sad to think that it should light
Upon the worthy head; but thou art healed,
And thou art yet, we trust, the destined man,
Born to re-animate the lyre, whose chords
Have slumbered, and have idle lain so long;
To the immortal sounding of whose strings
Did Milton frame the stately-paced verse;
Among whose wires with lighter finger playing
Our elder bard, Spenser, a gentler name,
The lady Muses' dearest darling child,
Enticëd forth the deftest tunes yet heard
In hall or bower; taking the delicate ear
Of the brave Sidney, and the Maiden Queen.
Thou, then, take up the mighty epic strain,
Cowper, of England's bards the wisest and the best!

LINES ADDRESSED FROM LONDON, TO SARA AND S. T. C. AT BRISTOL,

IN THE SUMMER OF 1796.

SONNET TO A FRIEND.

Friend of my earliest years and childish days,
My joys, my sorrows, thou with me hast shared,
Companion dear, and we alike have fared
(Poor pilgrims we) through life's unequal ways;
It were unwisely done, should we refuse
To cheer our path as featly as we may,
Our lonely path to cheer, as travellers use,
With merry song, quaint tale, or roundelay;
And we will sometimes talk past troubles o'er,
Of mercies shown, and all our sickness healed,
And in his judgments God remembering love;
And we will learn to praise God evermore
For those glad tidings of great joy revealed
By that sooth messenger sent from above.

SONNET.

[The Lord of Life shakes off his drowsihed]

The Lord of Life shakes off his drowsihed,
And 'gins to sprinkle on the earth below
Those rays that from his shaken locks do flow;
Meantime, by truant love of rambling led,
I turn my back on thy detested walls,
Proud city! and thy sons I leave behind,
A sordid, selfish, money-getting kind;
Brute things, who shut their ears when Freedom calls.
I pass not thee so lightly, well-known spire,
That mindest me of many a pleasure gone,
Of merrier days, of love and Islington;
Kindling afresh the flames of past desire.
And I shall muse on thee slow journeying on
To the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.