-when life
was fresh, and topics exhaustless,--and you first kindled in me, if not
the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and kindliness.--

What words have I heard
Spoke at the Mermaid!

The world has given you many a shrewd nip and gird since that time, but
either my eyes are grown dimmer, or my old friend is the _same_, who
stood before me three and twenty years ago--his hair a little confessing
the hand of time, but still shrouding the same capacious brain,--his
heart not altered, scarcely where it "alteration finds."

One piece, Coleridge, I have ventured to publish in its original form,
though I have heard you complain of a certain over-imitation of the
antique in the style. If I could see any way of getting rid of the
objection, without re-writing it entirely, I would make some sacrifices.
But when I wrote John Woodvil, I never proposed to myself any distinct
deviation from common English. I had been newly initiated in the
writings of our elder dramatists; Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger,
were then a _first love_; and from what I was so freshly conversant in,
what wonder if my language imperceptibly took a tinge? The very _time_,
which I have chosen for my story, that which immediately followed the
Restoration, seemed to require, in an English play, that the English
should be of rather an older cast, than that of the precise year in
which it happened to be written. I wish it had not some faults, which I
can less vindicate than the language.

I remain,
My dear Coleridge,
Your's,
With unabated esteem,
C. LAMB.

LAMB'S EARLIEST POEM

MILLE VIAE MORTIS

(1789)

What time in bands of slumber all were laid,
To Death's dark court, methought I was convey'd;
In realms it lay far hid from mortal sight,
And gloomy tapers scarce kept out the night.

On ebon throne the King of Terrors sate;
Around him stood the ministers of Fate;
On fell destruction bent, the murth'rous band
Waited attentively his high command.

Here pallid Fear & dark Despair were seen.
And Fever here with looks forever lean,
Swoln Dropsy, halting Gout, profuse of woes,
And Madness fierce & hopeless of repose,

Wide-wasting Plague; but chief in honour stood
More-wasting War, insatiable of blood;