The Family Name

What reason first imposed thee, gentle name, Name that my father bore, and his sire's sire, Without reproach? we trace our stream no higher; And I, a childless man, may end the same. Perchance some shepherd on Lincolnian plains, In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks, Received the first amid the merry mocks And arch allusions of his fellow swains. Perchance from Salem's holier fields returned, With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord Took HIS meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd. Whate'er the fount whence thy beginnings came, No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name.

TO JOHN LAMB, ESQ.

Of the South-Sea House

John, you were figuring in the gay career Of blooming manhood with a young man's joy, When I was yet a little peevish boy-- Though time has made the difference disappear Betwixt our ages, which then seemed so great-- And still by rightful custom you retain Much of the old authoritative strain, And keep the elder brother up in state. O! you do well in this. 'Tis man's worst deed To let the "things that have been" run to waste, And in the unmeaning present sink the past: In whose dim glass even now I faintly read Old buried forms, and faces long ago, Which you, and I, and one more, only know.

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Here came "O! I could laugh." See page 5.

Here came "We were two pretty babes." See page 9.

Here came, under the heading "Blank Verse," "Childhood," see page 9; "The Grandame," see page 6; "The Sabbath Bells," see page 10, "Fancy employed on Divine Subjects," see page 10; and "Composed at Midnight," see page 26.

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TO MARTIN CHARLES BURNEY, ESQ.

(The Dedication to Vol. II. of Lamb's Works, 1818)

Forgive me, BURNEY, if to thee these late And hasty products of a critic pen, Thyself no common judge of books and men, In feeling of thy worth I dedicate. My verse was offered to an older friend; The humbler prose has fallen to thy share: Nor could I miss the occasion to declare, What spoken in thy presence must offend-- That, set aside some few caprices wild, Those humorous clouds that flit o'er brightest days, In all my threadings of this worldly maze, (And I have watched thee almost from a child), Free from self-seeking, envy, low design, I have not found a whiter soul than thine.