The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 21

_From the Latin of Palingenius, in the Zodiacus Vitae_

(1832)

But now time warns (my mission at an end) That to Jove's starry court I re-ascend; From whose high battlements I take delight To scan your earth, diminish'd to the sight, Pendant, and round, and, as an apple, small; Self-propt, self-balanced, and secure from fall By her own weight: and how with liquid robe Blue ocean girdles round her tiny globe, While lesser Nereus, gliding like a snake, Betwixt her hands his flexile course doth take, Shrunk to a rivulet; and how the Po, The mighty Ganges, Tanais, Ister, show No bigger than a ditch which rains have swell'd.

Old Nilus' seven proud mouths I late beheld, And mock'd the watery puddles. Hosts steel-clad Ofttimes I thence behold; and how the sad Peoples are punish'd by the fault of kings, Which from the purple fiend Ambition springs.

Forgetful of mortality, they live In hot strife for possessions fugitive, At which the angels grieve. Sometimes I trace Of fountains, rivers, seas, the change of place; By ever s.h.i.+fting course, and Time's unrest, The vale exalted, and the mount deprest To an inglorious valley; plough-shares going Where tall trees rear'd their tops; and fresh trees growing In antique pastures. Cities lose their site.

Old things wax new. O what a rare delight To him, who from this vantage can survey At once stern Afric, and soft Asia, With Europe's cultured plains; and in their turns Their scatter'd tribes: those whom the hot Crab burns, The tawny Ethiops; Orient Indians; Getulians; ever-wandering Scythians; Swift Tartar hordes; Cilicians rapacious, And Parthians with back-bended bow pugnacious; Sabeans incense-bringing, men of Thrace, Italian, Spaniard, Gaul, and that rough race Of Britons, rigid as their native colds; With all the rest the circling sun beholds!

But clouds, and elemental mists, deny These visions blest to any fleshly eye.

EXISTENCE, CONSIDERED IN ITSELF, NO BLESSING

_From the Latin of Palingenius_

(1832)

The Poet, after a seeming approval of suicide, from a consideration of the cares and crimes of life, finally rejecting it, discusses the negative importance of existence, contemplated in itself, without reference to good or evil.

Of these sad truths consideration had-- Thou shalt not fear to quit this world so mad, So wicked; but the tenet rather hold Of wise Cala.n.u.s, and his followers old, Who with their own wills their own freedom wrought, And by self-slaughter their dismissal sought From this dark den of crime--this horrid lair Of men, that savager than monsters are; And scorning longer, in this tangled mesh Of ills, to wait on perishable flesh, Did with their desperate hands antic.i.p.ate The too, too slow relief of lingering fate.

And if religion did not stay thine hand, And G.o.d, and Plato's wise behests, withstand, I would in like case counsel thee to throw This senseless burden off, of cares below.

Not wine, _as_ wine, men choose, but as it came From such or such a vintage: 'tis the same With life, which simply must be understood A black negation, if it be not good.

But if 'tis wretched all--as men decline And loath the sour lees of corrupted wine-- 'Tis so to be contemn'd. Merely TO BE Is not a boon to seek, nor ill to flee, Seeing that every vilest little Thing Has it in common, from a gnat's small wing, A creeping worm, down to the moveless stone, And crumbling bark from trees. Unless TO BE, And TO BE BLEST, be one, I do not see In bare existence, _as_ existence, aught That's worthy to be loved, or to be sought.

TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.

_On the New Edition of his "Pleasures of Memory"_

(1833)

When thy gay book hath paid its proud devoirs, Poetic friend, and fed with luxury The eye of pampered aristocracy In glittering drawing-rooms and gilt boudoirs, O'erlaid with comments of pictorial art, However rich and rare, yet nothing leaving Of healthful action to the soul-conceiving Of the true reader--yet a n.o.bler part Awaits thy work, already cla.s.sic styled.

Cheap-clad, accessible, in homeliest show The modest beauty through the land shall go From year to year, and render life more mild; Refinement to the poor man's hearth shall give, And in the moral heart of England live.

TO CLARA N[OVELLO]

(1834)

The G.o.ds have made me most unmusical, With feelings that respond not to the call Of stringed harp, or voice--obtuse and mute To hautboy, sackbut, dulcimer, and flute; King David's lyre, that made the madness flee From Saul, had been but a jew's-harp to me: Theorbos, violins, French horns, guitars, Leave in my wounded ears inflicted scars; I hate those trills, and shakes, and sounds that float Upon the captive air; I know no note, Nor ever shall, whatever folks may say, Of the strange mysteries of _Sol_ and _Fa_; I sit at oratorios like a fish, Incapable of sound, and only wish The thing was over. Yet do I admire, O tuneful daughter of a tuneful sire, Thy painful labours in a science, which To your deserts I pray may make you rich As much as you are loved, and add a grace To the most musical Novello race.

Women lead men by the nose, some cynics say; You draw them by the ear--a delicater way.

THE SISTERS

On Emma's honest brow we read display'd The constant virtues of the Nut Brown Maid; Mellifluous sounds on Clara's tongue we hear, Notes that once lured a Seraph from his sphere; Cecilia's eyes such winning beauties crown As without song might draw _her_ Angel down.

LOVE WILL COME

Tune--_The Tartar Drum_

I

Guard thy feelings, pretty Vestal, From the smooth Intruder free; Cage thy heart in bars of chrystal, Lock it with a golden key: Thro' the bars demurely stealing, Noiseless footstep, accent dumb, His approach to none revealing-- Watch, or watch not, LOVE WILL COME.

His approach to none revealing-- Watch, or watch not, Love will come--Love, Watch, or watch not, Love will come.

II

Scornful Beauty may deny him-- He hath spells to charm disdain; Homely Features may defy him-- Both at length must wear the chain.

Haughty Youth in Courts of Princes-- Hermit poor with age o'er come-- His soft plea at last convinces; Sooner, later, LOVE WILL COME.

His soft plea at length convinces; Sooner, later, Love will come--Love, Sooner, later, Love will come.

TO MARGARET W----

Margaret, in happy hour Christen'd from that humble flower Which we a daisy[17] call!

May thy pretty name-sake be In all things a type of thee, And image thee in all.

[Footnote 17: Marguerite, in French, signifies a daisy. [Note in _Athenaeum_.]]

To Margaret W----

Like _it_ you show a modest face, An unpretending native grace;-- The tulip, and the pink, The china and the damask rose, And every flaunting flower that blows, In the comparing shrink.

Of lowly fields you think no scorn; Yet gayest gardens would adorn, And grace, wherever set.

Home-seated in your lonely bower, Or wedded--a transplanted flower-- I bless you, Margaret!

EDMONTON, 8_th October_, 1834.