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LAMB.

THE GIPSY'S MALISON.

"Suck, baby, suck, mother's love grows by giving,
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting;
Black manhood comes, when riotous guilty living
Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.
Kiss, baby, kiss, mother's lips shine by kisses,
Choke the warm breath that else would fall in blessings;
Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses
Tend thee the kiss that poisons 'mid caressings.

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PRO Lamo must have been ammave to a degree,

of his writings, and the testimony of many friends, prove it to have been so. He died at his residence in Islington, on the 27th of December, 1834. His personal appearance was remarkable: his figure was diminutive and ungraceful; but his head was of the finest and most intellectual cast; "his face," writes one of his most esteemed friends, "was deeply marked and full of noble lines, -traces of sensibility, imagination, suffering, and much thought. His wit was in his eye, luminous, quick, and restless. The smile that played about his mouth was ever cordial and good-humoured." Leigh Hunt has happily characterized both his person and his mind ;-" as his frame so is his genius. It is as fit for thought as can be, and equally as unfit for action."

The Poetical productions of Charles Lamb are very limited; but they are sufficient both in quantity and quality to secure for him a prominent station among the Poets of Great Britain. He did not consider it beneath him to scribble "Album verses;" but his judgment in publishing them has been arraigned. If among them we find a few puerilities, and numerous affectations, it will not require a very close search to perceive many graceful and beautiful flowers lurking under leaves which are certainly uninviting. He loved to trifle, both in verse and prose; yet his trifling was that of a

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"Suck, baby, suck, mother's love grows by giving,
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting;
Black manhood comes, when riotous guilty living
Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.
Kiss, baby, kiss, mother's lips shine by kisses,

Choke the warm breath that else would fall in blessings ;
Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses
Tend thee the kiss that poisons 'mid caressings.

HESTER.

WHEN maidens such as Hester die,
Their place ye may not well supply,
Though ye among a thousand try,
With vain endeavour.

A month or more hath she been dead,
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed,
And her together.

A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate
Of pride and joy no common rate,
That flush'd her spirit.

I know not by what name beside
I shall it call:-if 'twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied,
She did inherit.

Her parents held the Quaker rule, Which doth the human feeling cool, But she was train'd in Nature's school,

Nature had blest her.

A waking eye, a prying mind,
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind,
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.

My sprightly neighbour, gone before
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
Some summer morning,

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,

SONNETS.

Was it some sweet device of faëry

That mocked my steps with many a lonely glade,
And fancied wanderings with a fair hair'd maid?
Have these things been? or what rare witchery,

Impregning with delights the charmed air,

Enlighted up the semblance of a smile
In those fine eyes? methought they spake the while
Soft soothing things, which might enforce despair
To drop the murdering knife, and let go by
His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade
Still court the footsteps of the fair hair'd maid?
Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh?
While 1 forlorn do wander reckless where,
And 'mid my wanderings meet no Anna there.

METHINKS how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd
Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high
Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie,
Nor of the busier scenes we left behind
Aught envying. And, O Anna! mild eyed maid!
Beloved! I were well content to play
With thy free tresses all a summer's day,
Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade.
Or we might sit and tell some tender tale
Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn,
A tale of true love, or of friend forgot;
And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail
In gentle sort, on those who practise not
Or love or pity, though of woman born.

WHEN last I roved these winding wood walks green
Green winding walks, and shady pathways sweet,
Oft-times would Anna seek the silent scene,
Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat.
No more I hear her footsteps in the shade :
Her image only in these pleasant ways
Meets me self-wandering, where, in happier days,
I held free converse with the fair-hair'd maid.

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