Charles Lamb
¶[1775-1834]
The Old Familiar Faces
¶I HAVE had playmates, I have had companionsIn my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
¶I have been laughing, I have been carousing,Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
¶I loved a Love once, fairest among women:Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her—All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
¶I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.
¶Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse,Seeking to find the old familiar faces.
¶Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?So might we talk of the old familiar faces,
¶How some they have died, and some they have left me,And some are taken from me; all are departed;All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Hester
¶WHEN maidens such as Hester dieTheir place ye may not well supply,Though ye among a thousand tryWith vain endeavour.[736]A month or more hath she been dead,Yet cannot I by force be ledTo think upon the wormy bedAnd her together.
¶A springy motion in her gait,A rising step, did indicateOf pride and joy no common rateThat flush'd her spirit:I know not by what name besideI shall it call: if 'twas not pride,It was a joy to that alliedShe did inherit.
¶Her parents held the Quaker rule,Which doth the human feeling cool;But she was train'd in Nature's school,Nature had blest her.A waking eye, a prying mind,A heart that stirs, is hard to bind;A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,Ye could not Hester.
¶My sprightly neighbour! gone beforeTo that unknown and silent shore,Shall we not meet, as heretoforeSome summer morning—When from thy cheerful eyes a rayHath struck a bliss upon the day,A bliss that would not go away,A sweet fore-warning?
An Infant Dying as Soon as Born
¶I SAW where in the shroud did lurkA curious frame of Nature's work;A flow'ret crushed in the bud,A nameless piece of Babyhood,Was in her cradle-coffin lying;Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying:So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb[737]For darker closets of the tomb!She did but ope an eye, and putA clear beam forth, then straight up shutFor the long dark: ne'er more to seeThrough glasses of mortality,Riddle of destiny, who can showWhat thy short visit meant, or knowWhat thy errand here below?Shall we say, that Nature blindCheck'd her hand, and changed her mindJust when she had exactly wroughtA finish'd pattern without fault?Could she flag, or could she tire,Or lack'd she the Promethean fire(With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd)That should thy little limbs have quicken'd?Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assureLife of health, and days mature:Woman's self in miniature!Limbs so fair, they might supply(Themselves now but cold imagery)The sculptor to make Beauty by.Or did the stern-eyed Fate descryThat babe or mother, one must die;So in mercy left the stockAnd cut the branch; to save the shockOf young years widow'd, and the painWhen Single State comes back againTo the lone man who, reft of wife,Thenceforward drags a maimed life?The economy of Heaven is dark,And wisest clerks have miss'd the markWhy human buds, like this, should fall,More brief than fly ephemeralThat has his day; while shrivell'd cronesStiffen with age to stocks and stones;And crabbed use the conscience searsIn sinners of an hundred years.—Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss:[738]Rites, which custom does impose,Silver bells, and baby clothes;Coral redder than those lipsWhich pale death did late eclipse;Music framed for infants' glee,Whistle never tuned for thee;Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them,Loving hearts were they which gave them.Let not one be missing; nurse,See them laid upon the hearseOf infant slain by doom perverse.Why should kings and nobles havePictured trophies to their grave,And we, churls, to thee denyThy pretty toys with thee to lie—A more harmless vanity?