CHARLES LAMB.

I.

TO MISS KELLY, THE ACTRESS.

You are not, Kelly, of the common strain,
That stoop their pride and female honor down
To please that many-headed beast, The Town,
And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for gain;
By fortune thrown amid the actor's train,
You keep your native dignity of thought;
The plaudits that attend you come unsought,
As tributes due unto your natural vein.
Your tears have passion in them, and a grace

Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow;
Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot trace,
That vanish and return we know not how,

And please the better from a pensive face,
A thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.

II.

CRAVING FOR LEISURE.

THEY talk of Time, and of Time's galling yoke, That like a millstone on man's mind doth press, Which only works and business can redress; Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke. But might I, fed with silent meditation, Assoiléd live from that fiend Occupation Improbus Labor, which my spirits hath broke I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit; Fling in more days than went to make the gem That crowned the white top of Methusalem; Yea, on my weak neck take, and never forfeit, Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky,

The heaven-sweet burden of eternity.

III.

IN THE ALBUM OF EDITH S

IN Christian world MARY the garland wears!
REBECCA Sweetens on a Hebrew's ear;
Quakers for pure PRISCILLA are more clear;
And the light Gaul by amorous NINON Swears;
Among the lesser lights how Lucy shines!

What air of fragrance ROSAMOND throws round!
How like a hymn doth sweet CECILIA Sound!
Of MARTHAS and of ABIGAILS few lines

Have bragged in verse. Of coarsest household stuff
Should homely JOAN be fashioned. But can

You BARBARA resist, or MARIAN?

And is not CLARE for love excuse enough?

Yet, by my faith in numbers, I profess,
These all than Saxon EDITH please me less.

IV.

WRITTEN AT CAMBRIDGE.

I WAS not trained in academic bowers,
And to those learned streams I nothing owe

Which copious from those twin fair founts do flow
Mine have been anything but studious hours.
Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers,
Myself a nurseling, Granta, of thy lap;

My brow seems tightening with the doctor's cap,
And I walk gowned; feel unusual powers!
Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech,
Old Ramus'* ghost is busy at my brain,

And my skull teems with notions infinite.

Be still, ye reeds of Camus, while I teach

;

Truths which transcend the searching schoolmen's

vein,

And half had staggered that stout Stagirite.†

*The famous French logician.

† Aristotle.

CHARLES LLOYD.*

TO NOVEMBER.

DISMAL November! me it soothes to view,
At parting day, the scanty foliage fall
From the wet fruit-tree; or the gray stone-wall,
Whose cold films glisten with unwholesome dew;
To watch the yellow mists from the dank earth

Enfold the neighboring copse; while, as they pass,
The silent rain-drops bend the long rank grass,
Which wraps some blossom's unmaturéd birth.
And through my cot's lone lattice, glimmering gray,
The damp, chill evenings have a charm for me,
Dismal November! for strange vacancy

Summoneth then my very heart away!

Till from mist-hidden spire comes the slow knell, . And says, that in the still air Death doth dwell!

*"Nugæ Canoræ. Poems by Charles Lloyd, Author of 'Edmund Oliver,' 'Isabel,' and translator of Alfieri."