Charles Lamb
Epicedium — Going or Gone
(Drayton)
Fine merry franions,
Wanton companions,
My days are ev’n banyans
With thinking upon ye;
How Death, that last stinger,
Finis-writer, end-bringer,
Has laid his chill finger,
Or is laying on ye.
There’s rich Kitty Wheatley,
With footing it featly
That took me completely,
She sleeps in the Kirk House;
And poor Polly Perkin,
Whose Dad was still firking
The jolly ale firkin,
She’s gone to the Work-house;
Fine gard’ner, Ben Carter
(In ten counties no smarter)
Has ta’en his departure
For Proserpine’s orchards;
And Lily, postilion,
With cheeks of vermilion,
Is one of a million
That fill up the church-yards;
And, lusty as Dido,
Fat Clemitson’s widow
Flits now a small shadow
By Stygian hid ford;
And good Master Clapton
Has thirty years nap’t on
The ground he last hap’t on,
Intomb’d by fair Widford;
And gallant Tom Dockwra,
Of nature’s finest crockery,
Now but thin air and mockery,
Lurks by Avernus,
Whose honest grasp of hand
Still, while his life did stand,
At friend’s or foe’s command,
Almost did burn us.
Roger de Coverley
Not more good man than he;
Yet has he equally
Push’d for Cocytus,
With drivelling Worral,
And wicked old Dorrell,
’Gainst whom I’ve a quarrel,
Whose end might affright us!—
Kindly hearts have I known;
Kindly hearts, they are flown;
Here and there if but one
Linger yet uneffaced,
Imbecile tottering elves,
Soon to be wreck’d on shelves,
These scarce are half themselves,
With age and care crazed.
But this day Fanny Hutton
Her last dress has put on;
Her fine lessons forgotten,
She died, as the dunce died:
And prim Betsy Chambers,
Decay’d in her members,
No longer remembers
Things, as she once did;
And prudent Miss Wither
Not in jest now doth wither,
And soon must go—whither
Nor I well, nor you know;
And flaunting Miss Waller,
That soon must befall her,
Whence none can recall her,
Though proud once as Juno!
Hypochondriacus
(Robert Burton)
By myself walking,
To myself talking,
When as I ruminate
On my untoward fate,
Scarcely seem I
Alone sufficiently,
Black thoughts continually
Crowding my privacy;
They come unbidden,
Like foes at a wedding,
Thrusting their faces
In better guests’ places,
Peevish and malecontent,
Clownish, impertinent,
Dashing the merriment:
So in like fashions
Dim cogitations
Follow and haunt me,
Striving to daunt me,
In my heart festering,
In my ears whispering,
‘Thy friends are treacherous,
Thy foes are dangerous,
Thy dreams ominous.’
Fierce Anthropophagi,
Spectra, Diaboli,
What scared St. Anthony
Hobgoblins, Lemures,
Dreams of Antipodes,
Night-riding Incubi
Troubling the fantasy,
All dire illusions
Causing confusions;
Figments heretical,
Scruples fantastical,
Doubts diabolical,
Abaddon vexeth me,
Mahu perplexeth me,
Lucifer teareth me—
Jesu! Maria! liberate nos ab his diris tentationibus Inimici.
NONSENSE VERSES.
(LAMB)
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, unaccustomed 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 slut.
Angel-duck, angel-duck, wingèd, 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 choose it:
Remember the loss is her own, if she lose it.