Alas! good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such an hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate, where all the rage
Is on one side. In vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,
In which not even contempt lurks, to beguile
Your heart by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Then ever yet was coldest maid or boy
In winter-noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.
Hazlitt writes of Shelley in his essay "On Paradox and Commonplace" in Table Talk; but he does not make this remark there. Perhaps he said it in conversation.
"The next Number." The "futile Effort" was "Blakesmoor in H——shire" in the London Magazine for September, 1824.
Here should come a note from Lamb to Cary, August 19, 1824, in which Lamb thanks him for his translation of The Birds of Aristophanes and accepts an invitation to dine.]
LETTER 352
CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON
[Dated at end: September 30, 1824.]
Little Book! surnam'd of White;
Clean, as yet, and fair to sight;
Keep thy attribution right,
Never disproportion'd scrawl;
Ugly blot, that's worse than all;
On thy maiden clearness fall.
In each Letter, here design'd,
Let the Reader emblem'd find
Neatness of the Owner's mind.