Breakfast
A dinner party, coffee, tea,
Sandwich, or supper, all may be
In their way pleasant. But to me
Not one of these deserves the praise
That welcomer of new-born days,
A breakfast, merits; ever giving
Cheerful notice we are living
Another day refreshed by sleep,
When its festival we keep.
Now although I would not slight
Those kindly words we use, 'Good night,'
Yet parting words are words of sorrow,
And may not vie with sweet 'Good morrow,'
With which again our friends we greet,
When in the breakfast-room we meet,
At the social table round,
Listening to the lively sound
Of those notes which never tire,
Of urn, or kettle on the fire.
Sleepy Robert never hears
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poem by Charles Lamb
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Thoughtless Cruelty
There, Robert, you have killed that fly,
And should you thousand ages try
The life you've taken to supply,
You could not do it.
You surely must have been devoid
Of thought and sense, to have destroyed
A thing which no way you annoyed-
You'll one day rue it.
'Twas but a fly perhaps you'll say,
That's born in April, dies in May;
That does but just learn to display
His wings one minute,
And in the next is vanished quite:
A bird devours it in his flight,
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poem by Charles Lamb
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Lines Addressed From London, To Sara And S.T.C. At Bristol, In The Summer Of 1796
Was it so hard a thing? I did but ask
A fleeting holiday, a little week.
What if the jaded steer who all day long
Had borne the heat and burthen of the plough,
When evening came, and her sweet cooling hour,
Should seek to wander in a neighbour copse,
Where greener herbage waved, or clearer streams
Invited him to slake his burning thirst?
The man were crabbed who should say him nay,
The man were churlish who should drive him thence.
A blessing light upon your worthy heads,
Ye hospitable pair! I may not come
To catch, on Clifden's heights, the summer gale;
I may not come to taste the Avon wave;
Or, with mine eye intent on Redcliffe towers,
To muse in tears on that mysterious youth,
Cruelly slighted, who, in evil hour,
Shaped his adventurous course to London walls!
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The Christening
Arrayed-a half angelic sight-
In nests of pure baptismal white,
The mother to the font doth bring
The little, helpless, nameless thing,
With hushes soft, and mild caressing,
At once to get-a name and blessing!
Close to the babe the priest doth stand,
The sacred water at his hand,
That must assoil the soul within
From every stain of Adam's sin.
The Infant eyes the mystic scenes,
Nor knows what all this wonder means;
And now he smiles, as if to say,
'I am a Christian made to-day;'
Now, frighted, clings to nurse's hold,
Shrinking from the water cold,
Whose virtues, rightly understood,
Are, as Bethesda's waters, good-
Strange words! 'The World, the Flesh, the Devil.'
Poor Babe, what can it know of evil?
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The First Tooth
SISTER.
Through the house what busy joy,
Just because the infant boy
Has a tiny tooth to show.
I have got a double row,
All as white, and all as small;
Yet no one cares for mine at all.
He can say but half a word,
Yet that single sound's preferred
To all the words that I can say
In the longest summer day.
He cannot walk, yet if he put
With mimic motion out his foot,
As if he thought he were advancing,
It's prized more than my best dancing.
BROTHER.
Sister, I know, you jesting are,
Yet O! of jealousy beware.
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The Lame Brother
My parents sleep both in one grave;
My only friend's a brother.
The dearest things upon the earth
We are to one another.
A fine stout boy I knew him once,
With active form and limb;
Whene'er he leaped, or jumped, or ran,
O I was proud of him!
He leaped too far, he got a hurt,
He now does limping go.-
When I think on his active days,
My heart is full of woe.
He leans on me, when we to school
Do every morning walk;
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The Journey From School And To School
O what a joyous joyous day
Is that on which we come
At the recess from school away,
Each lad to his own home!
What though the coach is crammëd full,
The weather very warm;
Think you a boy of us is dull,
Or feels the slightest harm?
The dust and sun is life and fun;
The hot and sultry weather
A higher zest gives every breast,
Thus jumbled all together.
Sometimes we laugh aloud, aloud,
Sometimes huzzah, huzzah.
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The Ride
Lately an equipage I overtook,
And helped to lift it o'er a narrow brook.
No horse it had except one boy, who drew
His sister out in it the fields to view.
O happy town-bred girl, in fine chaise going
For the first time to see the green grass growing.
This was the end and purport of the ride
I learned, as walking slowly by their side
I heard their conversation. Often she-
'Brother, is this the country that I see?'
The bricks were smoking, and the ground was broke,
There were no signs of verdure when she spoke.
He, as the well-informed delight in chiding
The ignorant, these questions still deriding,
To his good judgment modestly she yields;
Till, brick-kilns past, they reached the open fields.
Then, as with rapturous wonder round she gazes
On the green grass, the buttercups, and daisies,
'This is the country sure enough,' she cries;
'Is't not a charming place?' The boy replies,
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The First Leaf Of Spring
WRITTEN ON THE FIRST LEAF OF A LADY'S ALBUM.
Thou fragile, filmy, gossamery thing,
First leaf of spring!
At every lightest breath that quakest,
And with a zephyr shakest;
Scarce stout enough to hold thy slender form together
In calmest halcyon weather:
Next sister to the web that spiders weave,
Poor flutterers to deceive
Into their treacherous silken bed:
O! how art thou sustained, how nourishëd!
All trivial as thou art,
Without dispute,
Thou play'st a mighty part;
And art the herald to a throng
Of buds, blooms, fruit,
That shall thy cracking branches sway,
While birds on every spray
Shall pay the copious fruitage with a sylvan song.
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The Great Grandfather
My father's grandfather lives still,
His age is fourscore years and ten;
He looks a monument of time,
The agedest of aged men.
Though years lie on him like a load,
A happier man you will not see
Than he, whenever he can get
His great grandchildren on his knee.
When we our parents have displeased,
He stands between us as a screen;
By him our good deeds in the sun,
Our bad ones in the shade are seen.
His love's a line that's long drawn out,
Yet lasteth firm unto the end;
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poem by Charles Lamb
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