The harp that once through Tara's halls We buried him darkly at dead of night, 5 The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. The sods with our bayonets turning; By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, And the lantern dimly burning. 512 "Work-work-work! My labor never flags; THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM And work-work-work, 55 し was faster wrote Eriticis, & trama CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834) CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I find a magnificent eulogy on my old school,' such as it was, or now appears to him to have been, between the years 1782 and 1789. It happens, very oddly, that my own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding with his; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for the cloisters, I think he has contrived to bring to- [10 gether whatever can be said in praise of them, dropping all the other side of the argument most ingeniously. I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that he had some peculiar ad When the weather is warm and bright- vantages, which I and others of his school While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling As if to show me their sunny backs And twit me with the spring. "Oh! but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet With the sky above my head, And the grass beneath my feet; For only one short hour To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want And the walk that costs a meal. "Oh! but for one short hour! A respite however brief! No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, But only time for Grief! A little weeping would ease my heart, But in their briny bed My tears must stop, for every drop Hinders needle and thread!" With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 61 65 70 75 80 85 And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the Rich! She sang this "Song of the Shirt!" fellows had not. His friends lived in town, and were near at hand; and he had the privilege of going to see them, almost as often as he wished, through some [20 invidious distinction, which was denied to us. The present worthy sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that happened. He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter of a penny loaf our crug-moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, blue [30 and tasteless, and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and choking, were enriched for him with a slice of "extraordinary bread and butter," from the hot-loaf of the Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less repugnant-(we had three banyan to four meat days in the week) was endeared to his palate with a lump of double-refined, and a smack of ginger (to make it go down the [40 more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. In lieu of our half-pickled Sundays, or quite fresh boiled beef on Thursdays (strong as caro equina), with detestable marigolds floating in the pail to poison the broth our scanty mutton crags on Fridays and rather more savory, but 1 Recollections of Christ's Hospital. essary. Person of select by temper. Brings are curves. LAMB 513 grudging, portions of the same flesh, were turned out, for the live-long day, I was a poor friendless boy. My parents, and those who should care for me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, which they could reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a little forced notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holiday [80 visits. They seemed to them to recur too often, though I thought them few enough; and, one after another, they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among six hundred playmates. Ŏ the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early homestead! The yearnings which I used to have towards it in those unfledged years! How, in my dreams, would my native town (far in the west) [90 come back, with its church, and trees, and faces! How I would wake weeping, and in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire! To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by the recollection of those friendless holidays. The long warm days of summer never return but they bring with them a gloom from the haunting memory of those whole-day-leaves, [100 when, by some strange arrangement, we upon our own hands, whether we had It was worse in the days of winter, to L.'s governor (so we called the pa- [140 tron who presented us to the foundation) lived in a manner under his paternal roof. Any complaint which he had to make was sure of being attended to. This was understood at Christ's, and was an effectual screen to him against the severity of masters, or worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppressions of these young brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollection. I have been called out of [150 my bed, and waked for the purpose, in the coldest winter nights-and this not once, but night after night-in my shirt, to receive the discipline of a leathern thong, with eleven other sufferers, because |