1 DECEMBER 1883, Page 15

POETRY.

CHARLES LAMB.

DEAR heart ! from dim Elizabethan days

Surely thy feet strayed to our garish noon ; Thou should'st have walked beneath a yellowing moon, In some old garden's green, enchanted ways, With Herrick and Ben Jonson ; while in praise

Of his lady thrilled the nightingale's full tune,—

And he grown still, these sang, 'Death skies of June, That bent to hear, catches and roundelays.

In fair converse, thou might'st have wandered With Burton's self, the master whose rare thought Makes Melancholy glad the heart like wine ; In thy earth-day, these fair compeers were dead ; How pleasant was their laughter, had they caught The sallies of thy humour, quaint and fine !

KATHARINE TYNAN.