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TO SARA AND HER SAMUEL
WAS it so hard a thing? I did but ask
A fleeting holy day. One little week,
Or haply two, had bounded my request.
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What if the jaded Steer, who all day long
Had borne the heat and labour of the plough,
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| 36 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | July |
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When Evening came and her sweet cooling hour,
Should seek to trespass on a neighbour copse,
Where greener herbage waved, or clearer streams
Invited him to slake his burning thirst?
That Man were crabbed, who should say him Nay:
That Man were churlish, who should drive him thence!
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A blessing light upon your heads, ye good,
Ye hospitable pair. I may not come,
To catch on Clifden’s heights the summer gale:
I may not come, a pilgrim, to the “Vales
Where Avon winds,” to taste th’ inspiring waves
Which Shakespere drank, our
British Helicon:
Or, with mine eye intent on Redcliffe towers,
To drop a tear for that Mysterious
youth,
Cruelly slighted, who to London Walls,
In evil hour, shap’d his disastrous course.
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Complaints, begone; begone, ill-omen’d thoughts—
For yet again, and lo! from Avon banks
Another “Minstrel” cometh! Youth beloved,
God and good angels guide thee on thy way,
And gentler fortunes wait the friends I love.
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