The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 27

_Suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross_

(1827)

Time-mouldering CROSSES, gemm'd with imagery Of costliest work, and Gothic tracery, Point still the spots, to hallow'd wedlock dear, Where rested on its solemn way the bier, That bore the bones of Edward's Elinor To mix with Royal dust at Westminster.-- Far different rites did thee to dust consign, Duke Brunswick's daughter, Princely Caroline.

A hurrying funeral, and a banish'd grave, High-minded Wife! were all that thou could'st have.

Grieve not, great Ghost, nor count in death thy losses; Thou in thy life-time had'st thy share of _crosses._

FOR THE "TABLE BOOK"

(1827)

Laura, too partial to her friends' enditing, Requires from each a pattern of their _writing._ A weightier trifle Laura might command; For who to Laura would refuse his--_hand?_

THE ROYAL WONDERS

(1830)

Two miracles at once! Compell'd by fate, His tarnish'd throne the Bourbon doth vacate; While English William,--a diviner thing,-- Of his free pleasure hath put off _the king._ The forms of distant old respect lets pa.s.s, And melts his crown into the common ma.s.s.

Health to fair France, and fine regeneration!

But England's is the n.o.bler abdication.

"BREVIS ESSE LABORO"

"ONE DIP"

(1830)

Much speech obscures the sense; the soul of wit Is brevity: our tale one proof of it.

Poor Balbulus, a stammering invalid, Consults the doctors, and by them is bid To try sea-bathing, with this special heed, "One Dip was all his malady did need; More than that one his certain death would be."

Now who so nervous or so shook as he, For Balbulus had never dipped before?

Two well-known dippers at the Broadstairs' sh.o.r.e, Stout, st.u.r.dy churls, have stript him to the skin, And naked, cold, and shivering plunge him in.

Soon he emerges, with scarce breath to say, "I'm to be dip--dip--dipt--." "We know it," they Reply; expostulation seemed in vain, And over ears they souse him in again, And up again he rises, his words trip, And falter as before. Still "dip--dip--dip"-- And in again he goes with furious plunge, Once more to rise; when, with a desperate lunge, At length he bolts these words out, "Only once!"

The villains crave his pardon. Had the dunce But aimed at these bare words the rogues had found him, But striving to be prolix, they half drowned him.

SUUM CUIQUE

(1830)

Adsciscit sibi divitias et opes alienas Fur, rapiens, spolians quod mihi, quodque tibi Proprium erat, temnens haec verba, Meumque Tuumque; Omne Suum est. Tandem cuique suum tribuit.

Dat laqueo collum: vestes, vah! carnifici dat: Sese Diabolo; sic bene, Cuique Suum.

[ON THE _LITERARY GAZETTE_]

(1830)

In merry England I computed once The number of the dunces--dunce for dunce; There were _four hundred_, if I don't forget, _All readers of the L------y G-----e;_ But if the author to himself keep true, In some short months they'll be reduced to _two_.

ON THE FAST-DAY

To name a Day for general prayer and fast Is surely worse than of no sort of use; For you may see with grief, from first to last On _fast_-days people of all ranks are _loose_.

NONSENSE VERSES

Lazy-bones, lazy-bones, wake up, and peep!

The cat's in the cupboard, your mother's asleep.

There you sit snoring, forgetting her ills; Who is to give her her Bolus and Pills?

Twenty fine Angels must come into town, All for to help you to make your new gown: Dainty AERIAL Spinsters, and Singers; Aren't you ashamed to employ such white fingers?

Delicate hands, unaccustom'd to reels, To set 'em a working a poor body's wheels?

Why they came down is to me all a riddle, And left HALLELUJAH broke off in the middle: Jove's Court, and the Presence angelical, cut-- To eke out the work of a lazy young s.l.u.t.

Angel-duck, Angel-duck, winged, and silly, Pouring a watering-pot over a lily, Gardener gratuitous, careless of pelf, Leave her to water her lily herself, Or to neglect it to death if she chuse it: Remember the loss is her own, if she lose it.

ON WAWD

_(Of the East India House)_

What Wawd knows, G.o.d knows; But G.o.d knows _what_ Wawd knows.

SIX EPITAPHS ON ENSIGN PEAc.o.c.k

(1799)