died." Mrs. Lamb's death, at
the hands of her daughter in a moment of frenzy, occurred on September
22, 1796. Lamb added that he wrote the poem at the office with "unusual
celerity." "I expect you to like it better than anything of mine; Lloyd
does, and I do myself." The version sent to Coleridge differs only in
minor and unimportant points from that in _Blank Verse_.

The second paragraph of the poem is very similar to a passage which Lamb
had written in a letter to Coleridge on November 14, 1796:--

"Oh, my friend! I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are
past, which among them should I choose? not those 'merrier days,' not
the 'pleasant days of hope,' not 'those wanderings with a fair-hair'd
maid,' which I have so often and so feelingly regretted, but the days,
Coleridge, of a _mother's_ fondness for her _school-boy_. What would I
give to call her back to earth for _one_ day!--on my knees to ask her
pardon for all those little asperities of temper which, from time to
time, have given her gentle spirit pain!--and the day, my friend, I
trust, will come. There will be 'time enough' for kind offices of love,
if 'Heaven's eternal year' be ours. Here-after, her meek spirit shall
not reproach me."

In the last paragraph of the poem is a hint of "The Old Familiar Faces,"
that was to follow it in the course of a few months.

Lines 52, 53. _And one, above the rest_. Probably Coleridge is meant.

Page 24. _Written soon after the Preceding Poem_.

The poem is addressed to Lamb's mother. Lamb seems to have sent a copy
to Southey, although the letter containing it has not been perserved,
for we find Southey passing it on to his friend C.W.W. Wynn on November
29, 1797, with a commendation: "I know that our tastes differ much in
poetry, and yet I think you must like these lines by Charles Lamb."

The following passage in Rosamund Gray, which Lamb was writing at this
time, is curiously like these poems in tone. It occurs in one of the
letters from Elinor Clare to her friend--letters in which Lamb seems to
describe sometimes his own feelings, and sometimes those of his sister,
on their great sorrow:--

"Maria! shall not the meeting of blessed spirits, think you, be
something like this?--I think, I could even now behold my mother without
dread--I would ask pardon of her for all my past omissions of duty, for
all the little asperities in my temper, which have so often grieved her
gentle spirit when living. Maria! I