Charles Lamb

By myself walking, To myself talking.

For thy sake, Tobacco, I Would do any thing but die.

Sentimentally I am disposed to harmony; but organically I am incapable of a tune.

But the trail of the serpent is over them all.

I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days. All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

But there 's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream.

Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah has triumph'd, - his people are free.

Fly not yet; 't is just the hour When pleasure, like the midnight flower That scorns the eye of vulgar light, Begins to bloom for sons of night And maids who love the moon.

Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, And multiply each through endless years,- One minute of heaven is worth them all.

Presents, I often say, endear absents.