[Eight years afterwards, in 1805, when Mary Lamb, to whom this poem is addressed, was again under confinement in a lunatic asylum, suffering from another of her frequent paroxysms of insanity, Charles wrote of her: "I am a fool bereft of her co-operation. I am used to look up to her in the least and biggest perplexities. To say all that I find her would be more thar, I think, anybody could possibly understand. She is older, wiser, and better than I am; and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by thinking on her goodness."]

I AM a widow'd thing, now thou art gone!

Now thou art gone, my own familiar friend,

Companion, sister, helpmate, counsellor !

Alas! that honour'd mind, whose sweet reproof

And meekest wisdom in times past have smooth'd

The unfilial harshness of my foolish speech,

And made me loving to my parents old,

(Why is this so, ah, God! why is this so?)

That honour'd mind become a fearful blank,

Her senses lock'd up, and herself kept

out

From human sight or converse, while so many

Of the foolish sort are left to roam at large,

Doing all acts of folly, and sin, and shame?

Thy paths are mystery!

Yet I will not think, Sweet friend, but we shall one day meet, and live

In quietness, and die so, fearing God. Or if not, and these false suggestions be

A fit of the weak nature, loth to part With what it loved so long, and held so dear ;

If thou art to be taken, and I left (More sinning, yet unpunish'd, save in thee),

It is the will of God, and we are clay In the potter's hands; and, at the worst, are made

From absolute nothing, vessels of disgrace,

Till, his most righteous purpose wrought in us,

Our purified spirits find their perfect

rest.

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

(JANUARY, 1798.)

[This loveliest of Charles Lamb's poems began, in the original issue of it, with an inquiry, in a single line, and with a first stanza, afterwards omitted by the author as of too dreadful import. It bore allusion to that appalling tragedy, the reverent veiling and gentle endurance of which, during the rest of his existence, lifted the homely life of this poor city clerk and London man of letters to the height of antique heroism. What is said here of the friend he had left abruptly bore reference to a momentary estrangement from Coleridge. The interrogation, in answer to which the whole of this exquisite lament was chaunted, and the first terrible stanza, afterwards cancelled, are here restored as curiosities; but they are carefully barred off from what Charles Lamb, evidently, alone wished preserved, of a poem that, without them, is certainly "one entire and perfect chrysolite."]

[Where are they gone, the old familiar faces?

By her enormous fablings, and mad lies,

Discredit on the gospel's serious truths And salutary fears. The man of parts, Poet, or prose declaimer, on his couch Lolling, like one indifferent, fabricates A heaven of gold, where he, and such as he,

Their heads encompassèd with crowns, their heels

With fine wings garlanded, shall tread the stars

Beneath their feet, heaven's pavement, far removed

From damned spirits, and the torturing cries

Of men, his brethren, fashion'd of the earth,

As he was, nourish'd with the selfsame breath,

Belike his kindred or companions

LIVING WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD.

[Originally published in 1799, at Bristol, in vol. i. pp. 90-92, of Joseph Cottle's Annual Anthology, edited by Robert Southey.]

MYSTERY of God! thou brave and beauteous world,

Made fair with light and shade and stars and flowers,

Made fearful and august with woods and rocks;

Jagg'd precipice, black mountain, sea in storms,

Sun, over all, that no co-rival owns, But thro' Heaven's pavement rides as in despite

Or mockery of the littleness of man! I see a mighty arm, by man unseen, Resistless, not to be controll'd, that guides,

In solitude of unshared energies, All these thy ceaseless miracles, O world!

Arm of the world, I view thee, and I

muse

On Man, who, trusting in his mortal strength,

Leans on a shadowy staff, a staff of dreams.

We consecrate our total hopes and fears

To idols, flesh and blood, our love (heaven's due),

Our praise and admiration; praise bestow'd

By man on man, and acts of worship done

To a kindred nature, certes do reflect Some portion of the glory and rays oblique

Upon the politic worshipper,—so man Extracts a pride from his humility. Some braver spirits of the modern stamp

Affect a Godhead nearer these talk loud

Of mind, and independent intellect,
Of energies omnipotent in man;
And man of his own fate artificer;
Yea, of his own life lord, and of the
days

Of his abode on earth, when time

shall be,

THEKLA'S SONG.

BALLAD FROM THE GERMAN.

[Originally published in 1800, in Coleridge's translation from the German of Schiller's Piccolomini, or the first part of Wallenstein. As a prefix to it there, in a footnote, on p. 89, Coleridge wrote these words: "I cannot but add here an imitation of this song with which the author of 'The Tale of Rosamund Gray and Blind Margaret' has favoured me, and which appears to me to have caught the happiest manner of our old ballads.' Coleridge, according to his wont, considerably modified these stanzas as they were originally published by him in the footnote to his translation of Piccolomini. Charles Lamb, however, restored them two years afterwards to what he regarded as their integrity when, in 1802, he appended them to his first imprint of John Woodvil. They are here given according to his own corrected version.]

THE clouds are blackening, the storms threatening,

And ever the forest maketh a moan; Billows are breaking, the damsel's heart aching,

Thus by herself she singeth alone,
Weeping right plenteously.

The world is empty, the heart is dead surely,

In this world plainly all seemeth amiss;

To thy breast, Holy One, take now thy little one,

I have had earnest of all earth's

bliss,

Living right lovingly.