Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Charles Lamb. 17751834578. 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, | 5 |
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 | 10 |
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, | 15 |
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. | 20 |
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 | 25 |
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, | 30 |
A bliss that would not go away, | |
A sweet forewarning? |