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　　FREE THOUGHTS ON SEVERAL EMINENT COMPOSERS

　　(1830)

　　Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart,

　　Just as the whim bites; for my part,

　　I do not care a farthing candle

　　For either of them, or for Handel.—

　　Cannot a man live free and easy,

　　Without admiring Pergolesi?

　　Or thro' the world with comfort go,

　　That never heard of Doctor Blow?

　　So help me heaven, I hardly have;

　　And yet I eat, and drink, and shave,

　　Like other people, if you watch it,

　　And know no more of stave or crotchet,

　　Than did the primitive Peruvians;

　　Or those old ante-queer-diluvians

　　That lived in the unwash'd world with Jubal,

　　Before that dirty blacksmith Tubal

　　By stroke on anvil, or by summ'at,

　　Found out, to his great surprise, the gamut.

　　I care no more for Cimarosa,

　　Than he did for Salvator Rosa,

　　Being no painter; and bad luck

　　Be mine, if I can bear that Gluck!

　　Old Tycho Brahe, and modern Herschel,

　　Had something in them; but who's Purcel?

　　The devil, with his foot so cloven,

　　For aught I care, may take Beethoven;

　　And, if the bargain does not suit,

　　I'll throw him Weber in to boot.

　　There's not the splitting of a splinter

　　To chuse 'twixt him last named, and Winter.

　　Of Doctor Pepusch old queen Dido

　　Knew just as much, God knows, as I do.

　　I would not go four miles to visit

　　Sebastian Bach (or Batch, which is it?);

　　No more I would for Bononcini.

　　As for Novello, or Rossini,

　　I shall not say a word to grieve 'em,

　　Because they're living; so I leave 'em.

　　MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, NOT COLLECTED BY LAMB

　　DRAMATIC FRAGMENT

　　(1798)

　　Fie upon't.

　　All men are false, I think. The date of love

　　Is out, expired, its stories all grown stale,

　　O'er past, forgotten, like an antique tale

　　Of Hero and Leander.

　　JOHN WOODVIL.

　　All are not false. I knew a youth who died

　　For grief, because his Love proved so,

　　And married with another.

　　I saw him on the wedding-day,

　　For he was present in the church that day,

　　In festive bravery deck'd,

　　As one that came to grace the ceremony.

　　I mark'd him when the ring was given,

　　His countenance never changed;

　　And when the priest pronounced the marriage blessing,

　　He put a silent prayer up for the bride,

　　For so his moving lip interpreted.

　　He came invited to the marriage feast

　　With the bride's friends,

　　And was the merriest of them all that day:

　　But they, who knew him best, called it feign'd mirth;

　　And others said,

　　He wore a smile like death upon his face.

　　His presence dash'd all the beholders' mirth,

　　And he went away in tears.

　　What followed then?

　　Oh! then

　　He did not, as neglected suitors use,

　　Affect a life of solitude in shades,

　　But lived,

　　In free discourse and sweet society,

　　Among his friends who knew his gentle nature best.

　　Yet ever when he smiled,

　　There was a mystery legible in his face,

　　That whoso saw him said he was a man

　　Not long for this world.——

　　And true it was, for even then

　　The silent love was feeding at his heart

　　Of which he died:

　　Nor ever spake word of reproach,

　　Only, he wish'd in death that his remains

　　Might find a poor grave in some spot, not far

　　From his mistress' family vault, "being the place

　　Where one day Anna should herself be laid." The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4