The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 75

In the last paragraph of the poem is a hint of "The Old Familiar Faces,"

that was to follow it in the course of a few months.

Lines 52, 53. _And one, above the rest_. Probably Coleridge is meant.

Page 24. _Written soon after the Preceding Poem_.

The poem is addressed to Lamb's mother. Lamb seems to have sent a copy to Southey, although the letter containing it has not been perserved, for we find Southey pa.s.sing it on to his friend C.W.W. Wynn on November 29, 1797, with a commendation: "I know that our tastes differ much in poetry, and yet I think you must like these lines by Charles Lamb."

The following pa.s.sage in Rosamund Gray, which Lamb was writing at this time, is curiously like these poems in tone. It occurs in one of the letters from Elinor Clare to her friend--letters in which Lamb seems to describe sometimes his own feelings, and sometimes those of his sister, on their great sorrow:--

"Maria! shall not the meeting of blessed spirits, think you, be something like this?--I think, I could even now behold my mother without dread--I would ask pardon of her for all my past omissions of duty, for all the little asperities in my temper, which have so often grieved her gentle spirit when living. Maria! I think she would not turn away from me.

"Oftentimes a feeling, more vivid than memory, brings her before me--I see her sit in her old elbow chair--her arms folded upon her lap--a tear upon her cheek, that seems to upbraid her unkind daughter for some inattention--I wipe it away and kiss her honored lips.

"Maria! when I have been fancying all this, Allan will come in, with his poor eyes red with weeping, and taking me by the hand, destroy the vision in a moment.

"I am prating to you, my sweet cousin, but it is the prattle of the heart, which Maria loves. Besides, whom have I to talk to of these things but you--you have been my counsellor in times past, my companion, and sweet familiar friend. Bear with me a little--I mourn the 'cherishers of my infancy.'"

Page 25. _Written on Christmas Day, 1797_.

Mary Lamb, to whom these lines were addressed, after seeming to be on the road to perfect recovery, had suddenly had a relapse necessitating a return to confinement from the lodging in which her brother had placed her.

Page 25. _The Old Familiar Faces_.

This, the best known of all Lamb's poems, was written in January, 1798, following, it is suggested, upon a fit of resentment against Charles Lloyd. Writing to Coleridge in that month Lamb tells of that little difference, adding, "but he has forgiven me." Mr. J.A. Rutter, who, through Canon Ainger, enunciated this theory, thinks that Lloyd may be the "friend" of the fourth stanza, and Coleridge the "friend" of the sixth. The old--but untenable--supposition was that it was Coleridge whom Lamb had left abruptly. On the other hand it might possibly have been James White, especially as he was of a resolutely high-spirited disposition.

In its 1798 form the poem began with this stanza:--

Where are they gone, the old familiar faces?

I had a mother, but she died, and left me, Died prematurely in a day of horrors-- All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

And the last stanza began with the word "For," and italicised the words

_And some are taken from me_.

I am inclined to think from this italicisation that it was Mary Lamb's new seizure that was the real impulse of the poem.

The poem was dated January, 1798. Lamb printed it twice--in 1798 and 1818.

Page 26. _Composed at Midnight_.

On the appearance of Lamb's _Works_, 1818, Leigh Hunt printed in _The Examiner_ (February 7 and 8, 1819) the pa.s.sage beginning with line 32, ent.i.tling it "A HINT to the GREATER CRIMINALS who are so fond of declaiming against the crimes of the poor and uneducated, and in favour of the torments of prisons and prison-s.h.i.+ps in this world, and worse in the next. Such a one, says the poet,

'on his couch Lolling, &c.'"

Page 28. POEMS AT THE END OF JOHN WOODVIL, 1802.

The volume containing _John Woodvil_, 1802, which is placed in the present edition among Lamb's plays, on page 149, included also the "Fragments of Burton" (see Vol. I.) and two lyrics.

Page 28. _Helen_.

Lamb sent this poem to Coleridge on August 26, 1800, remarking:--"How do you like this little epigram? It is not my writing, nor had I any finger in it. If you concur with me in thinking it very elegant and very original, I shall be tempted to name the author to you. I will just hint that it is almost or quite a first attempt."

The author was, of course, Mary Lamb. In his _Elia_ essay "Blakesmoor in H----s.h.i.+re" in the _London Magazine_, September, 1824, Lamb quoted the poem, stating that "Bridget took the hint" of her "pretty whimsical lines" from a portrait of one of the Plumers' ancestors. The portrait was the cool pastoral beauty with a lamb, and it was partly to make fun of her brother's pa.s.sion for the picture that Mary wrote the lines.

The poem was reprinted in the _Works_, 1818.

Page 29. _Ballad from the German_.

This poem was written for Coleridge's translation of "The Piccolimini,"

the first part of Schiller's "Wallenstein," in 1800--Coleridge supplying a prose paraphrase (for Lamb knew no German) for the purpose. The original is Thekla's song in Act II., Scene 6:--

Der Eichwald brauset, die Wolken ziehn, Das Magdlein wandelt an Ufers Grun, Es bricht sich die Welle mit Macht, mit Macht, Und sie singt hinaus in die finstre Nacht, Das Auge von Weinen getrubet.

Das Herz ist ges...o...b..n, die Welt ist leer, Und welter giebt sie dem Wunsche nichts mehr.

Du Heilige, rufe dein Kind zuruck, Ich habe genossen das irdische Gluck, Ich habe gelebt und geliebet.

Coleridge's own translation of Thekla's song, which was printed alone in later editions of the play, ran thus:--

The cloud doth gather, the greenwood roar, The damsel paces along the sh.o.r.e; The billows they tumble with might, with might; And she flings out her voice to the darksome night; Her bosom is swelling with sorrow; The world it is empty, the heart will die, There's nothing to wish for beneath the sky: Thou Holy One, call thy child away!

I've lived and loved, and that was to-day-- Make ready my grave-clothes to-morrow.

Barry Cornwall, in his memoir of Lamb, says: "Lamb used to boast that he supplied one line to his friend in the fourth scene [Act IV., Scene i]

of that tragedy, where the description of the Pagan deities occurs. In speaking of Saturn, he is figured as 'an old man melancholy.' 'That was my line,' Lamb would say, exultingly." The line did not reach print in this form.

Lamb printed his translation twice--in 1802 and 1818.

Page 29. _Hypochondriacus_.