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　　LETTER 591

　　CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD AND EMMA MOXON

　　Nov. 29th, 1833.

　　Mary is of opinion with me, that two of these Sonnets are of a higher grade than any poetry you have done yet. The one to Emma is so pretty! I have only allowed myself to transpose a word in the third line. Sacred shall it be for any intermeddling of mine. But we jointly beg that you will make four lines in the room of the four last. Read "Darby and Joan," in Mrs. Moxon's first album. There you'll see how beautiful in age the looking back to youthful years in an old couple is. But it is a violence to the feelings to anticipate that time in youth. I hope you and Emma will have many a quarrel and many a make-up (and she is beautiful in reconciliation!) before the dark days shall come, in which ye shall say "there is small comfort in them." You have begun a sort of character of Emma in them very sweetly; carry it on, if you can, through the last lines.

　　I love the sonnet to my heart, and you shall finish it, and I'll be damn'd if I furnish a line towards it. So much for that. The next best is

　　TO THE OCEAN

　　"Ye gallant winds, if e'er your LUSTY CHEEKS

　　Blew longing lover to his mistress' side,

　　O, puff your loudest, spread the canvas wide,"

　　is spirited. The last line I altered, and have re-altered it as it stood. It is closer. These two are your best. But take a good deal of time in finishing the first. How proud should Emma be of her poets!

　　Perhaps "O Ocean" (though I like it) is too much of the open vowels, which Pope objects to. "Great Ocean!" is obvious. "To save sad thoughts" I think is better (though not good) than for the mind to save herself. But 'tis a noble Sonnet. "St. Cloud" I have no fault to find with.

　　If I return the Sonnets, think it no disrespect; for I look for a printed copy. You have done better than ever. And now for a reason I did not notice 'em earlier. On Wednesday they came, and on Wednesday I was a-gadding. Mary gave me a holiday, and I set off to Snow Hill. From Snow Hill I deliberately was marching down, with noble Holborn before me, framing in mental cogitation a map of the dear London in prospect, thinking to traverse Wardour-street, &c., when diabolically I was interrupted by

　　Heigh-ho!

　　Little Barrow!—

　　Emma knows him,—and prevailed on to spend the day at his sister's, where was an album, and (O march of intellect!) plenty of literary conversation, and more acquaintance with the state of modern poetry than I could keep up with. I was positively distanced. Knowles' play, which, epilogued by me, lay on the PIANO, alone made me hold up my head. When I came home I read your letter, and glimpsed at your beautiful sonnet,

　　"Fair art them as the morning, my young bride,"

　　and dwelt upon it in a confused brain, but determined not to open them till next day, being in a state not to be told of at Chatteris. Tell it not in Gath, Emma, lest the daughters triumph! I am at the end of my tether. I wish you could come on Tuesday with your fair bride. Why can't you! Do. We are thankful to your sister for being of the party. Come, and bring a sonnet on Mary's birthday. Love to the whole Moxonry, and tell E. I every day love her more, and miss her less. Tell her so from her loving uncle, as she has let me call myself. I bought a fine embossed card yesterday, and wrote for the Pawnbrokeress's album. She is a Miss Brown, engaged to a Mr. White. One of the lines was (I forget the rest—but she had them at twenty-four hours' notice; she is going out to India with her husband):—

　　"May your fame And fortune, Frances, WHITEN with your name!"

　　Not bad as a pun. I wil expect you before two on Tuesday. I am well and happy, tell E.

　　[Moxon subsequently published his Sonnets, in two parts, one of which was dedicated to his brother and one to Wordsworth. There are several to his wife, so that it is difficult to identify that in which the last lines were to be altered. Mrs. Moxon's first album was an extract book in which Lamb had copied a number of old ballads and other poems.

　　I "e one of Moxon's many sonnets to Emma Moxon:—

　　Fair art thou as the morning, my young Bride!

　　Her freshness is about thee; like a river

　　To the sea gliding with sweet murmur ever

　　Thou sportest; and, wherever thou dost glide,

　　Humanity a livelier aspect wears.

　　Fair art thou as the morning of that land

　　Where Tuscan breezes in his youth have fanned

　　Thy grandsire oft. Thou hast not many tears,

　　Save such as pity from the heart will wring,

　　And then there is a smile in thy distress!

　　Meeker thou art than lily of the spring,

　　Yet is thy nature full of nobleness!

　　And gentle ways, that soothe and raise me so,

　　That henceforth I no worldly sorrow know!

　　"Heigh-ho! Little Barrow!" I cannot identify this acquaintance.

　　"Knowles's play"—"The Wife." Prologued by Lamb too.

　　"At Chatteris." I cannot say who were the teetotal, or abstinent, Philistines.

　　"Mary's birthday." Mary Lamb would be sixty-nine on December 3, 1833.

　　Lamb's verses to Miss Brown seem to be no longer preserved. Mr. Hazlitt prints a letter to a Miss Frances Brown, wherein Lamb offers the verses, adding "I hope your sweetheart's name is WHITE. Else it would spoil all. May be 'tis BLACK. Then we must alter it. And may your fortunes BLACKEN with your name."] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6