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　　ON SEEING MRS. K—— B——, AGED UPWARDS OF EIGHTY, NURSE AN INFANT

　　A sight like this might find apology

　　In worlds unsway'd by our Chronology;

　　As Tully says, (the thought's in Plato)—

　　"To die is but to go to Cato."

　　Of this world Time is of the essence,—

　　A kind of universal presence;

　　And therefore poets should have made him

　　Not only old, as they've pourtray'd him,

　　But young, mature, and old—all three

　　In one—a sort of mystery—

　　('Tis hard to paint abstraction pure.)

　　Here young—there old—and now mature—

　　Just as we see some old book-print,

　　Not to one scene its hero stint;

　　But, in the distance, take occasion

　　To draw him in some other station.

　　Here this prepost'rous union seems

　　A kind of meeting of extremes.

　　Ye may not live together. Mean ye

　　To pass that gulf that lies between ye

　　Of fourscore years, as we skip ages

　　In turning o'er historic pages?

　　Thou dost not to this age belong:

　　Thou art three generations wrong:

　　Old Time has miss'd thee: there he tarries!

　　Go on to thy contemporaries!

　　Give the child up. To see thee kiss him

　　Is a compleat anachronism.

　　Nay, keep him. It is good to see

　　Race link'd to race, in him and thee.

　　The child repelleth not at all

　　Her touch as uncongenial,

　　But loves the old Nurse like another—

　　Its sister—or its natural mother;

　　And to the nurse a pride it gives

　　To think (though old) that still she lives

　　With one, who may not hope in vain

　　To live her years all o'er again! The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4