DEAR Col,—You have learnd by this time, with surprise, no doubt, that Lloyd is with me in town. The emotions I felt on his coming so unlooked for are not ill expressed in what follows, & what, if you do not object to them as too personal, & to the world obscure, or otherwise wanting in worth, I should wish to make a part of our little volume.
I shall be sorry if that vol comes out, as it necessarily must do, unless you print those very schoolboyish verses I sent you on not getting leave to come down to Bristol last Summer. I say I shall be sorry that I have addrest you in nothing which can appear in our joint volume.
So frequently, so habitually as you dwell on my thoughts, ’tis some wonder those thoughts came never yet in Contact with a poetical mood—But you dwell in my heart of hearts, and I love you in all the naked honesty of prose. God bless you, and all your little domestic circle—my tenderest remembrances to your Beloved Sara, & a smile and a kiss from me to your dear dear little David Hartley—The verses I refer to above, slightly amended, I have sent (forgetting to ask your leave, tho’ indeed I gave them only your initials) to the Month: Mag: where they may possibly appear next month, and where I hope to recognise your Poem on Burns.
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Alone, obscure, without a friend,
A cheerless, solitary thing,
Why seeks my Lloyd the stranger
out?
What offring can the stranger bring
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Of social scenes, home-bred delights,
That him in aught compensate may
For Stowey’s pleasant winter nights,
For loves & friendships far away?
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| 88 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Jan. |
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In brief oblivion to forego
Friends, such as thine, so justly dear,
And be awhile with me content
To stay, a kindly loiterer, here—
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For this a gleam of random joy,
Hath flush’d my unaccustom’d cheek,
And, with an o’er-charg’d bursting heart,
I feel the thanks, I cannot speak.
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O! sweet are all the Muses’ lays,
And sweet the charm of matin bird—
’Twas long, since these estranged ears
The sweeter voice of friend had heard.
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The voice hath spoke: the pleasant sounds
In memory’s ear, in after time
Shall live, to sometimes rouse a tear,
And sometimes prompt an honest rhyme.
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For when the transient charm is fled,
And when the little week is o’er,
To cheerless, friendless solitude
When I return, as heretofore—
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Long, long, within my aching heart,
The grateful sense shall cherishd be;
I’ll think less meanly of myself,
That Lloyd will sometimes think on
me.
1797.
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O Col: would to God you were in London with us, or we two at Stowey with you all. Lloyd takes up his abode at the Bull & Mouth Inn,—the Cat & Salutation would have had a charm more forcible for me. O noctes cœnæque Deûm! Anglice—Welch rabbits, punch, & poesy.
Should you he induced to publish those very schoolboyish verses, print ’em as they will occur, if at all, in the Month: Mag: yet I should feel ashamed that to you I wrote nothing better. But they are too personal, & almost trifling and obscure withal. Some lines of mine to Cowper were in last Month: Mag: they have not body of thought enough to plead for the retaining of ’em.
My sister’s kind love to you all.
