d not lightly bruise old Priscian's head,
Or wrong the rules of grammar understood;
But, with the leave of Priscian be it said,
The _Indicative_ is your _Potential Mood._
Wit, poet, prose-man, party-man, translator--
H[unt], your best title yet is INDICATOR.

ON SEEING MRS. K---- B----, AGED UPWARDS
OF EIGHTY, NURSE AN INFANT

A sight like this might find apology
In worlds unsway'd by our Chronology;
As Tully says, (the thought's in Plato)--
"To die is but to go to Cato."
Of this world Time is of the essence,--
A kind of universal presence;
And therefore poets should have made him
Not only old, as they've pourtray'd him,
But young, mature, and old--all three
In one--a sort of mystery--
('Tis hard to paint abstraction pure.)
Here young--there old--and now mature--
Just as we see some old book-print,
Not to one scene its hero stint;
But, in the distance, take occasion
To draw him in some other station.
Here this prepost'rous union seems
A kind of meeting of extremes.
Ye may not live together. Mean ye
To pass that gulf that lies between ye
Of fourscore years, as we skip ages
In turning o'er historic pages?
Thou dost not to this age belong:
Thou art three generations wrong:
Old Time has miss'd thee: there he tarries!
Go on to thy contemporaries!
Give the child up. To see thee kiss him
Is a compleat anachronism.
Nay, keep him. It is good to see
Race link'd to race, in him and thee.
The child repelleth not at all
Her touch as uncongenial,
But loves the old Nurse like another--
Its sister--or its natural mother;
And to the nurse a pride it gives
To think (though old) that still she lives
With one, who may not hope in vain
To live her years all o'er again!

TO EMMA, LEARNING LATIN, AND DESPONDING

(_By Mary Lamb_. ? 1827)

Droop not, dear Emma, dry those falling tears,
And call up smiles into thy pallid face,
Pallid and care-worn with thy arduous race:
In few brief months thou hast done the work of years.
To young beginnings natural are these fears.
A right good scholar s