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　　LETTER 21

　　CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

　　[Dated at end: January 18, 1797.]

　　Dear Col,—You have learnd by this time, with surprise, no doubt, that Lloyd is with me in town. The emotions I felt on his coming so unlooked for are not ill expressed in what follows, & what, if you do not object to them as too personal, & to the world obscure, or otherwise wanting in worth, I should wish to make a part of our little volume.

　　I shall be sorry if that vol comes out, as it necessarily must do, unless you print those very schoolboyish verses I sent you on not getting leave to come down to Bristol last Summer. I say I shall be sorry that I have addrest you in nothing which can appear in our joint volume.

　　So frequently, so habitually as you dwell on my thoughts, 'tis some wonder those thoughts came never yet in Contact with a poetical mood—But you dwell in my heart of hearts, and I love you in all the naked honesty of prose. God bless you, and all your little domestic circle—my tenderest remembrances to your Beloved Sara, & a smile and a kiss from me to your dear dear little David Hartley—The verses I refer to above, slightly amended, I have sent (forgetting to ask your leave, tho' indeed I gave them only your initials) to the Month: Mag: where they may possibly appear next month, and where I hope to recognise your Poem on Burns.

　　TO CHARLES LLOYD, AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

　　Alone, obscure, without a friend,

　　A cheerless, solitary thing,

　　Why seeks my Lloyd the stranger out?

　　What offring can the stranger bring

　　Of social scenes, home-bred delights,

　　That him in aught compensate may

　　For Stowey's pleasant winter nights,

　　For loves & friendships far away?

　　In brief oblivion to forego

　　Friends, such as thine, so justly dear,

　　And be awhile with me content

　　To stay, a kindly loiterer, here—

　　For this a gleam of random joy,

　　Hath flush'd my unaccustom'd cheek,

　　And, with an o'er-charg'd bursting heart,

　　I feel the thanks, I cannot speak.

　　O! sweet are all the Muses' lays,

　　And sweet the charm of matin bird—

　　'Twas long, since these estranged ears

　　The sweeter voice of friend had heard.

　　The voice hath spoke: the pleasant sounds

　　In memory's ear, in after time

　　Shall live, to sometimes rouse a tear,

　　And sometimes prompt an honest rhyme.

　　For when the transient charm is fled,

　　And when the little week is o'er,

　　To cheerless, friendless solitude

　　When I return, as heretofore—

　　Long, long, within my aching heart,

　　The grateful sense shall cherishd be;

　　I'll think less meanly of myself,

　　That Lloyd will sometimes think on me.

　　1797.

　　O Col: would to God you were in London with us, or we two at Stowey with you all. Lloyd takes up his abode at the Bull & Mouth Inn,—the Cat & Salutation would have had a charm more forcible for me. O noctes caenaeque Deûm! Anglice—Welch rabbits, punch, & poesy.

　　Should you be induced to publish those very schoolboyish verses, print 'em as they will occur, if at all, in the Month: Mag: yet I should feel ashamed that to you I wrote nothing better. But they are too personal, & almost trifling and obscure withal. Some lines of mine to Cowper were in last Month: Mag: they have not body of thought enough to plead for the retaining of 'em.

　　My sister's kind love to you all.

　　C. LAMB.

　　[The verses to Lloyd were included in Coleridge's 1797 volume; but the verses concerning the frustrated Bristol holiday were omitted. Concerning this visit to London Charles Lloyd wrote to his brother Robert: "I left Charles Lamb very warmly interested in his favour, and have kept up a regular correspondence with him ever since; he is a most interesting young man." Only two letters from Lamb to Charles Lloyd have survived.

　　"We two"—Lamb and Lloyd. Not Lamb and his sister.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5