David In The Cave Of Adullam
David and his three captains bold
Kept ambush once within a hold.
It was in Adullam's cave,
Nigh which no water they could have.
Nor spring nor running brook was near
To quench the thirst that parched them there.
Then David king of Israel
Straight bethought him of a well
Which stood beside the city gate
At Bethlem: where, before his state
Of kingly dignity, he had
Oft drunk his fill, a shepherd lad.
But now his fierce Philistian foe
Encamped before it he does know.
Yet ne'er the less with heat opprest,
Those three bold captains he addrest,
And wished that one to him would bring
Some water from his native spring.
His valiant captains instantly
To execute his will did fly.
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poem by Charles Lamb
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To A Young Lady, On Being Too Fond Of Music
Why is your mind thus all day long
Upon your music set;
Till reason's swallowed in a song,
Or idle canzonet?
I grant you, Melesinda, when
Your instrument was new,
I was well pleased to see you then
Its charms assiduous woo.
The rudiments of any art
Or mastery that we try,
Are only on the learner's part
Got by hard industry.
But you are past your first essays;
Whene'er you play, your touch,
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The Broken Doll
An infant is a selfish sprite;
But what of that? the sweet delight
Which from participation springs,
Is quite unknown to these young things.
We elder children then will smile
At our dear little John awhile,
And bear with him, until he see
There is a sweet felicity
In pleasing more than only one
Dear little craving selfish John.
He laughs, and thinks it a fine joke,
That he our new wax doll has broke.
Anger will never teach him better;
We will the spirit and the letter
Of courtesy to him display
By taking in a friendly way
These baby frolics; till he learn
True sport from mischief to discern.
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The Rainbow
After the tempest in the sky
How sweet yon rainbow to the eye!
Come, my Matilda, now while some
Few drops of rain are yet to come,
In this honeysuckle bower
Safely sheltered from the shower,
We may count the colours o'er.-
Seven there are, there are no more;
Each in each so finely blended,
Where they begin, or where are ended,
The finest eye can scarcely see.
A fixed thing it seems to be;
But, while we speak, see how it glides
Away, and now observe it hides
Half of its perfect arch-now we
Scarce any part of it can see.
What is colour? If I were
A natural philosopher,
I would tell you what does make
This meteor every colour take:
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poem by Charles Lamb
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The Coffee Slips
Whene'er I fragrant coffee drink,
I on the generous Frenchman think,
Whose noble perseverance bore
The tree to Martinico's shore.
While yet her colony was new,
Her island products but a few,
Two shoots from off a coffee-tree
He carried with him o'er the sea.
Each little tender coffee slip
He waters daily in the ship,
And as he tends his embryo trees,
Feels he is raising midst the seas
Coffee groves, whose ample shade
Shall screen the dark Creolian maid.
But soon, alas! his darling pleasure
In watching this his precious treasure
Is like to fade,-for water fails
On board the ship in which he sails.
Now all the reservoirs are shut,
The crew on short allowance put;
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poem by Charles Lamb
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Written Soon After The Preceding Poem
Thou should'st have longer liv'd, and to the grave
Have peacefully gone down in full old age!
Thy children would have tended thy gray hairs.
We might have sat, as we have often done,
By our fireside, and talk'd whole nights away,
Old times, old friends, and old events recalling;
With many a circumstance, of trivial note,
To memory dear, and of importance grown.
How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?
A wayward son ofttimes was I to thee;
And yet, in all our little bickerings,
Domestic jars, there was, I know not what,
Of tender feeling, that were ill exchang'd
For this world's chilling friendships, and their smiles
Familiar, whom the heart calls strangers still.
A heavy lot hath he, most wretched man!
Who lives the last of all his family.
He looks around him, and his eye discerns
The face of the stranger, and his heart is sick.
Man of the world, what canst thou do for him?
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poem by Charles Lamb
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Weeding
As busy Aurelia, 'twixt work and 'twixt play,
Was labouring industriously hard
To cull the vile weeds from the flowerets away,
Which grew in her father's court-yard;
In her juvenile anger, wherever she found,
She plucked, and she pulled, and she tore;
The poor passive sufferers bestrewed all the ground;
Not a weed of them all she forbore.
At length 'twas her chance on some nettles to light
(Things, till then, she had scarcely heard named);
The vulgar intruders called forth all her spite;
In a transport of rage she exclaimed,
'Shall briars so unsightly and worthless as those
Their great sprawling leaves thus presume
To mix with the pink, the jonquil, and the rose,
And take up a flower's sweet room?'
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poem by Charles Lamb
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Wasps In A Garden
The wall-trees are laden with fruit;
The grape, and the plum, and the pear,
The peach and the nectarine, to suit
Every taste, in abundance are there.
Yet all are not welcome to taste
These kind bounties of Nature; for one
From her open-spread table must haste
To make room for a more favoured son:
As that wasp will soon sadly perceive,
Who has feasted awhile on a plum;
And, his thirst thinking now to relieve,
For a sweet liquid draught he is come.
He peeps in the narrow-mouthed glass,
Which depends from a branch of the tree;
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poem by Charles Lamb
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Prologue To Faulkener
A TRAGEDY BY WILLIAM GODWIN, 1807.
An author who has given you all delight
Furnished the tale our stage presents to-night.
Some of our earliest tears he taught to steal
Down our young cheeks, and forced us first to feel.
To solitary shores whole years confined,
Who has not read how pensive Crusoe pined?
Who, now grown old, that did not once admire
His goat, his parrot, his uncouth attire,
The stick, due-notched, that told each tedious day
That in the lonely island wore away?
Who has not shuddered, where he stands aghast
At sight of human footsteps in the waste?
Or joyed not, when his trembling hands unbind
Thee, Friday, gentlest of the savage kind?
The genius who conceived that magic tale
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poem by Charles Lamb
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Written On The Day Of My Aunt's Funeral
Thou too art dead, ---! very kind
Hast thou been to me in my childish days,
Thou best good creature. I have not forgot
How thou didst love thy Charles, when he was yet
A prating school-boy: I have not forgot
The busy joy on that important day,
When, child-like, the poor wanderer was content
To leave the bosom of parental love,
His childhood's play-place, and his early home,
For the rude fosterings of a stranger's hand,
Hard uncouth tasks, and school-boy's scanty fare.
How did thine eye peruse him round and round,
And hardly know him in his yellow coats[1],
Red leathern belt, and gown of russet blue!
Farewell, good aunt!
Go thou, and occupy the same grave-bed
Where the dead mother lies.
Oh my dear mother, oh thou dear dead saint!
Where's now that placid face, where oft hath sat
A mother's smile, to think her son should thrive
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poem by Charles Lamb
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