Saint Charles

'"Saint Charles," said Thackeray to me, thirty years ago, putting one of Charles Lamb's letters to his forehead.' - LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD.

Saint Charles! ah yes, let other men
Love Elia for his antic pen,
And watch with dilettante eyes
His page for every quaint surprise,
Curious of caviare phrase.
Yea; these who will not also praise?
We surely must, but which is more
The motley that his sorrow wore,
Or the great heart whose valorous beat
Upheld his brave unfaltering feet
Along the narrow path he chose,
And followed faithful to the close?

Yea, Elia, thank thee for thy wit,
How poor our laughter, lacking it!
For all thy gillyflowers of speech
Gramercy, Elia; but most rich
Are we, most holpen, when we meet
Thee and thy Bridget in the street,
Upon that tearful errand set -
So often trod, so patient yet!

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

May Is Building Her House

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

After Tibullus

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

April Is In The World Again

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

In The Night

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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To Miss Mitford: Authoress Of 'Our Village'

The single eye, the daughter of the light;
Well pleased to recognise in lowliest shade
Some glimmer of its parent beam, and made
By daily draughts of brightness, inly bright.
The taste severe, yet graceful, trained aright
In classic depth and clearness, and repaid
By thanks and honour from the wise and staid -
By pleasant skill to blame, and yet delight,
And high communion with the eloquent throng
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All these are yours.    The same examples lure,
You in each woodland, me on breezy moor -
With kindred aim the same sweet path along,
To knit in loving knowledge rich and poor.

Eversley, 1853.

Charles Kingsley

There Stands A City.

INGOLDSBY.



Year by year do Beauty's daughters,
In the sweetest gloves and shawls,
Troop to taste the Chattenham waters,
And adorn the Chattenham balls.

'Nulla non donanda lauru'
Is that city: you could not,
Placing England's map before you,
Light on a more favoured spot.

If no clear translucent river
Winds 'neath willow-shaded paths,
"Children and adults" may shiver
All day in "Chalybeate baths:"

If "the inimitable Fechter"
Never brings the gallery down,
Constantly "the Great Protector"
There "rejects the British crown:"

And on every side the painter
Looks on wooded vale and plain
And on fair hills, faint and fainter
Outlined as they near the main.

There I met with him, my chosen
Fri...

Charles Stuart Calverley

Envoy - To Charles Baxter

Do you remember
That afternoon - that Sunday afternoon! -
When, as the kirks were ringing in,
And the grey city teemed
With Sabbath feelings and aspects,
LEWIS - our LEWIS then,
Now the whole world's - and you,
Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came,
Laden with BALZACS
(Big, yellow books, quite impudently French),
The first of many times
To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay
So long, so many centuries -
Or years is it! - ago?

Dear CHARLES, since then
We have been friends, LEWIS and you and I,
(How good it sounds, 'LEWIS and you and I!'):
Such friends, I like to think,
That in us three, LEWIS and me and you,
Is something of that gallant dream
Which old DUMAS - the generous, the humane,
The seven-and-seventy times to b...

William Ernest Henley

Gemini And Virgo.

Some vast amount of years ago,
Ere all my youth had vanished from me,
A boy it was my lot to know,
Whom his familiar friends called Tommy.

I love to gaze upon a child;
A young bud bursting into blossom;
Artless, as Eve yet unbeguiled,
And agile as a young opossum:

And such was he. A calm-browed lad,
Yet mad, at moments, as a hatter:
Why hatters as a race are mad
I never knew, nor does it matter.

He was what nurses call a 'limb;'
One of those small misguided creatures,
Who, though their intellects are dim,
Are one too many for their teachers:

And, if you asked of him to say
What twice 10 was, or 3 times 7,
He'd glance (in quite a placid way)
From heaven to earth, from earth to heaven:

And smile, and look politel...

Charles Stuart Calverley

For Charles Dickens

Above our dear Romancers dust
Grief takes the place of praise,
Because of sudden cypress thrust
Amid the old-earned bays.

Ah! when shall such another friend
By Englands fireside sit,
To tell her of her faults, yet blend
Sage words with kindly wit?

He brings no pageants of the past
To wile our hearts away;
But wins our love for those who cast
Their lot with ours to-day.

He gives us laughter glad and long;
He gives us tears as pure;
He shames us with the published wrong
We meted to the poor.

Through webs and dust and weather-stains,
His sunlike genius paints,
On lifes transfigured chancel-panes,
The angels and the saints.

He bade us to a lordly feast,
And gave us of his best;
And vanished, while the ...

Mary Hannay Foott

Parody Of A Celebrated Letter.

^[1]


At length, dearest Freddy, the moment is night
When, with Perceval's leave, I may throw my chains by;
And, as time now is precious, the first thing I do
Is to sit down and write a wise letter to you.

        *        *        *        *
        *        *        *        *
        *        *        *        *
        *        *        *        *
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I meant before now to have sent you this Letter,
But Yarmouth and I thought perhaps 'twould be better
To wait till the Irish affairs are decided--
(That is, till both Houses had prosed and divided,
With all due appearance of thought and digestion)--
For, tho' Hertford House had long settled the question,
I th...

Thomas Moore