Charles Lamb - The Collected Works of Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

There is a time

When first sensation paints the burning cheek,

Fills the moist eye, and quickens the keen pulse,

That mystic meanings half conceiv'd invest

The simplest forms, and all doth speak, all lives

To the eager heart! At such a time to me

Thou cam'st, dear holiday! Thy twilight glooms

Mysterious thoughts awaken'd, and I mus'd

As if possest, yea felt as I had known

The dawn of inspiration. Then the days

Were sanctified by feeling, all around

Of an indwelling presence darkly spake.

Silence had borrow'd sounds to cheat the soul!

And, to the toys of life, the teeming brain,

Impregning them with its own character,

Gave preternatural import; the dull face

Was eloquent, and e'en the idle air

Most potent shapes, varying and yet the same,

Substantially express'd.

But soon my heart,

Unsatisfied with blissful shadows, felt

Achings of vacancy, and own'd the throb

Of undefin'd desire, while lays of love

Firstling and wild stole to my trem'lous tongue.

To me thy rites were mock'ry then, thy glee

Of little worth. More pleas'd I trod the waste

Sear'd with the sleety wind, and drank its blast;

Deeming thy dreary shapes most strangely sweet,

Mist-shrouded winter! in mute loneliness

I wore away the day which others hail'd

So cheerily, still usher'd in with chaunt

Of carol, and the merry ringers' peal,

Most musical to the good man that wakes

And praises God in gladness.

But soon fled

The dreams of love fantastic! Still the Friend,

The Friend, the wild roam o'er the drifted snows

Remain unsung! then when the wintry view

Objectless, mist-hidden, or in uncouth forms

Prank'd by the arrowy flake might aptly yield

New stores to shaping fantasy, I rov'd

With him my lov'd companion! Oh, 'twas sweet;

Ye who have known the swell that heaves the breast

Pregnant with loftiest poesy, declare

Is aught more soothing to the charmed soul

Than friendship's glow, the independent dream

Gathering when all the frivolous shews are fled

Of artificial life; when the wild step

Boundeth on wide existence, unbeheld,

Uncheck'd, and the heart fashioneth its hope

In Nature's school, while Nature bursts around,

Nor Man her spoiler meddles in the scene!

Farewell, dear day, much hath it sooth'd my heart

To chaunt thy frail memorial.

Now advance

The darkening years, and I do sojourn, home!

From thee afar. Where the broad-bosom'd hills,

Swept by perpetual clouds, of Scotland, rise,

Me fate compels to tarry.

Ditty quaint or custom'd carol, there my vacant ear

Ne'er blest! I thought of home and happier days!

And as I thought, my vexed spirit blam'd

That austere race, who, mindless of the glee

Of good old festival, coldly forbade

Th' observance which of mortal life relieves

The languid sameness, seeming too to bring

Sanction from hoar antiquity and years

Long past!

Table of Contents

(1820)

"First Fruits of Australian Poetry"

Sydney, New South Wales. Printed for Private Distribution

I first adventure; follow me who list;

And be the second Austral Harmonist.

Whoever thou art that hast transplanted the British wood-notes to the far-off forest which the Kangaroo haunts—whether thou art some involuntary exile that solaces his sad estrangement with recurrence to his native notes, with more wisdom than those captive Hebrews of old refused to sing their Sion songs in a strange land—or whether, as we rather suspect, thou art that valued friend of ours, who, in thy young time of life, together with thy faithful bride, thy newly "wedded flower," didst, in obedience to the stern voice of duty, quit thy friends, thy family, thy pleasing avocations, the Muses with which thou wert as deeply smitten as any, we believe, in our age and country, to go and administer tedious justice in inauspicious unliterary Thiefland [38]—we reclaim thee for our own, and gladly would transport thee back to thy native "fields," and studies congenial to thy habits.

[38]An elegant periphrasis for the Bay . Mr. Coleridge led us the way—"Cloudland, gorgeous land."

We know a merry Captain, and co-navigator with Cook, who prides himself upon having planted the first pun in Otaheite. It was in their own language, and the islanders first looked at him, then stared at one another, and all at once burst out into a genial laugh. It was a stranger, and as a stranger they gave it welcome. Many a quibble of their own growth, we doubt not, has since sprung from that well-timed exotic. Where puns flourish, there must be no inconsiderable advance in civilization. The same good results we are willing to augur from this dawn of refinement at Sydney. They were beginning to have something like a theatrical establishment there, which we are sorry to hear has been suppressed; for we are of opinion with those who think that a taste for such kind of entertainments is one remove at least from profligacy, and that Shakspeare and Gay may be as safe teachers of morality as the ordinary treatises which assume to instil that science. We have seen one of their play bills (while the thing was permitted to last) and were affected by it in no ordinary degree; particularly in the omission of the titles of honour, which in this country are condescendingly conceded to the players. In their Dramatis Personæ Jobson was played by Smith; Lady Loverule , Jones; Nell , Wilkinson: Gentlemen and Lady Performers alike curtailed of their fair proportions. With a little patronage, we prophesy, that in a very few years the histrionic establishment of Sydney would have risen in respectability; and the humble performers would, by tacit leave, or open permission, have been allowed to use the same encouraging affixes to their names, which dignify their prouder brethren and sisters in the mother country. What a moral advancement, what a lift in the scale, to a Braham or a Stephens of New South Wales, to write themselves Mr. and Miss ! The King here has it not in his power to do so much for a Commoner, no, not though he dub him a Duke.

"The First Fruits" consist of two poems. The first celebrates the plant epacris grandiflora ; but we are no botanists, and perhaps there is too much matter mixed up in it from the Midsummer Night's Dream , to please some readers. The thefts are indeed so open and palpable, that we almost recur to our first surmise, that the author must be some unfortunate wight, sent on his travels for plagiarisms of a more serious complexion. But the old matter and the new blend kindly together; and must, we hope, have proved right acceptable to more than one

——Among the Fair

Of that young land of Shakspeare's tongue.

We select for our readers the second poem; and are mistaken, if it does not relish of the graceful hyperboles of our elder writers. We can conceive it to have been written by Andrew Marvel, supposing him to have been banished to Botany Bay, as he did, we believe, once meditate a voluntary exile to Bermuda. See his fine poem, "Where the remote Bermudas ride."

* * * *.

"——mixtumque genus, prolesque biformis."—Virg., Æn. , vi.

Kangaroo, Kangaroo!

Thou spirit of Australia,

That redeems from utter failure,

From perfect desolation,

And warrants the creation

Of this fifth part of the earth,

Which would seem an after-birth,

Not conceiv'd in the beginning

(For God bless'd his work at first,

And saw that it was good),

But emerg'd at the first sinning,