[Lamb has struck his pen through the remainder.]
"Thane or Lordling, think no scorn
Of the poor and lowly-born.
In brake obscure or lonely dell
The simple flowret prospers well;
The gentler virtues cottage-bred, omitted
Thrive best beneath the humble shed.
Low-born Hinds, opprest, obscure,
Ye who patiently endure
To bend the knee and bow the head,
And thankful eat another's bread
Well may ye mourn your best friend dead,
Till Life with Grief together end:
He would have been the poor man's friend."
"Bending, warrior, o'er thy grave,
Young light of Scotland early spent! omitted
Thy country thee shall long lament,
Douglas, 'Beautiful and Brave'!
And oft to after times shall tell, omitted
In life's young prime my Hero fell."
[Sidenote: Is "morbid wantonness of woe" a good and allowable phrase?]
At length I have done with verse making. Not that I relish other people's poetry less,—theirs comes from 'em without effort, mine is the difficult operation of a brain scanty of ideas, made more difficult by disuse. I have been reading the "Task" with fresh delight. I am glad you love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but I would not call that man my friend, who should be offended with the "divine chit-chat of Cowper." Write to me.—God love you and yours,
C. L.
[The name of the young lady going out to India is not known; the verses were printed in the Monthly Magazine for March, 1797, but not in Coleridge's Poems, 1797. "The Tomb of Douglas" was included in that volume. The poem in which the alteration "pain and want" was to be made (but was not made, or was made and cancelled later) was "Fancy Employed on Divine Subjects."
The "divine chit-chat of Cowper" was Coleridge's own phrase. It is a pretty circumstance that Lamb and Cowper now share (with Keats) a memorial in Edmonton church.]
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