Charles Lamb

“ I thought I saw a pale and studious “Grecian” (as they call the head boys of the school) , and walking at his side, with glittering eyes full of wonderment, was a younger lad—a boy with crisply curling black hair, and with ruddy brown complexion, and in his look so much lovableness and trustfulness, that I felt myself envying the elder lad, whose hand rested so affectionately on the shoulder of his friend. ”

“ The lady Blanche, regardless of all her lovers’ fears,
To the Ursuline convent hastens, and long the abbess hears.
“O Blanche, my child, repent ye of the courtly life ye lead.”
Blanche looked on a rosebud, and little seem’d to heed.
She looked on the rosebud, she looked round and thought
On all her heart had whisper’d, and all the Nun had taught.
“I am worshipped by lovers, and brightly shines my fame,
All Christendom resoundeth the noble Blanche’s name. 120
Nor shall I quickly wither like the rosebud from the tree,
My queen-like graces shining when my beauty’s gone from me. ”

“ The noise of the bell and scampering of the boys soon made me realise that Fancy had led me back a hundred years and more, and had given me a glimpse of the boyhood of two famous Englishmen, who have added glory to their ancient school—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and philosopher, and Charles Lamb, essayist and critic, the best beloved of all the good and great men whose writings are dear to us. ”

“ I have taught your young lips the good words to say over,
Which form the petition we call The Lord’s Prayer,
And now let me help my dear child to discover
The meaning of all the good words that are there.
“Our Father,” the same appellation is given
To a parent on earth, and a Parent of all,
O gracious permission! the God that’s in heaven
Allows His poor creatures Him Father to call.
To “hallow His name” is to think with devotion
Of it, and with reverence mention the same;
Though you are so young, you should strive for some notion
Of the awe we should feel at the Holy One’s name. ”

“ For you may never be another’s bride.
That line I learn’d not in the old sad song. Mother.
I pray thee, pretty one, now hold thy tongue,
Play with the bride-maids, and be glad, my boy,
For thou shalt be a second father’s joy. Child. ”

“ In peace, as in war, ’tis our young gallants’ pride
To walk, each one i’ the streets, with a rapier by his side,
That none to do them injury may have pretence;
Wretched Age, in poverty, must brook offence. ”

“ Till his cheeks and fingers glow;
Climb a tree or scale a wall
Without any fear to fall.
If he get a hurt or bruise,
To complain he must refuse,
Though the anguish and the smart
Go unto his little heart;
He must have his courage ready,
Keep his voice and visage steady;
Brace his eyeballs stiff as drum,
That a tear may never come;
And his grief must only speak
From the colour in his cheek. 60
This and more he must endure,
Hero he in miniature.
This and more must now be done,
Now the breeches are put on.
61
THE
THREE FRIENDS XVII
Three young maids in friendship met,
Mary, Martha, Margaret. ”

“ Mary Lamb had something of her brother’s gift of writing; it was she indeed to whom you owe many of the Tales of Shakespeare you are so fond of. They loved children, and they loved Shakespeare, and their stories from Shakespeare have been and are still read by boys and girls all the world over. They wrote, too, a whole collection of Poetry for Children, and here also Mary’s share was much greater than her brother’s. “Mine,” wrote Charles, “are but one-third in quantity of the whole.” ... ”

“ If there were any wish to be learned and to explain how they came to write these verses, one would have to tell you something about other writers who were then living and writing, more especially about Lamb’s friend “S. T. C.,”6 who, together with an even greater poet, William Wordsworth, had published ten years before, in 1798, a small volume of simple English poems, which was destined to have the greatest influence on English poetry for long years to come. ”

“ They are simple little poems such as children should care for, and even grown-up people, for whom they were never intended, cherish every word written by Mary and Charles Lamb, because they know how much goodness and humility dwelt in their souls. ”

“ To London he had given “his4 heart and his love in childhood and in boyhood,” and throughout his life his heart was filled with “fulness of joy at the multitudinous scenes of life in the crowded streets of ever dear London.”
Charles Lamb’s Essays are among the greatest of our treasures, but even more beautiful than his writings is the record of his noble life—a life of saintly self-sacrifice, cheerfully devoted to the guardianship of a lonely sister, whose girlhood would have been spent in loveless solitude but for her brother’s love. ”

“ Do but chance to prick a finger, straight the doctor is call’d in;
In a wretched workhouse men are left to perish,
For want of proper cordials, which their old age might cherish.
In a costly palace Youth enjoys his lust ”

“ Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned where they occurred in the original book, often within poems. Each poem’s name is enclosed in a decorative floral border and followed by the poem’s Roman Numeral. Many of the other illustrations are full-page with one color, and the ones at the end of many poems are tailpieces or small black-and-white drawings. ”

“ Many parents would not have found so many.” This collection of “Poetry for Children” in two small volumes, was so much liked by the children that all the copies were soon bought up, and Charles Lamb himself could not get a copy, when later in life he sought one far and wide. So rare is the book now that only one or two copies are known to exist, and even the British Museum does not possess these precious little volumes. A small selection of the poems are now once again offered to boys and girls: if this prove welcome, more will follow. ”

“ In that volume Wordsworth first printed the sweet little poem I am sure you know, called We Are Seven, and Coleridge, “the inspired charity boy,” as Charles Lamb called him, gave the world the magical ballad of The Ancient Mariner. One verse from this ballad ought to be printed on the title-page of this little book of poems by Mary and Charles Lamb:—
“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small ”