POEMS FROM BLANK VERSE, BY CHARLES LLOYD AND CHARLES LAMB, 1798 TO CHARLES LLOYD A stranger, and alone, I past those scenes We past so late together; and my heart Felt something like desertion, when I look'd Around me, and the well-known voice of friend Was absent, and the cordial look was there No more to smile on me.

And I whispered how that I past this place, to my right, upon mine upward way, and how that I did think there to be a-plenty of monster caverns within the mountains that made the sides of the Gorge, and that, mayhap, the Slug-Creatures had there an home in such places, or came up, it might be, from some utter strange deepness and mystery of the great world.

The light on her face showed it pale; the lines on her mouth were deeper than any time had worn for her husband; her hair as gray as his, though he was already a man of grave, middle age, when the little wifehardly past her sixteenth birthdaycame to the farm with him.

This is truth, and so far I dare speak yet: he has yet past cure of Physick, spaw, or any diet, a primitive pox in his bones; and o' my Knowledge he has been ten times rowell'd: ye may love him; he had a bastard, his own toward issue, whipt, and then cropt for washing out the roses, in three farthings to make 'em pence.

From thence reade on the storie of his life, His humble carriage, his unfaulty wayes, His cancred foes, his fights, his toyle, his strife, His paines, his povertie, his sharpe assayes, 235 Through which he past his miserable dayes, Offending none, and doing good to all, Yet being malist* both by great and small.

My Lord she has attired me past my wish, Past my desert, more fit for her attendant, Though far unfit for me, who do attend.

Let not past errors discourage; who lives and sins not?

And in London I was frightfully convinced of this as I past houses and placesempty caskets now.

* Past the middle of an autumn night, where thick forests added to the darkness fitfully relieved by the fires of hasty bivouacs, there sat, apart from cannon and bayonets and sleeping battalions, a group of three.

The past has made ties and; memories which no present love or future joy can take away; she must be true to past obligations as well as present inclinations.

The blessing is generally followed by a dialogue between the manager and one or two of the actors, in which an account is given of the author of the drama, a complimentary tribute is paid to the critical acumen of the spectators, and such a reference is made to past occurrences or present circumstances as may be necessary for the elucidation of the plot.

But that this order extends to past offences, and subjects any man to imprisonment for having been present in some former day, cannot be conceived.

Would they were in thy belly, and I past my pain once.

Who warranted the yeilding of it up Without necessitie to the Governour? Who was the cause no greater powre was sent Against the Enemie when he past the Rhine And tooke the Townes of Oldensell, Lingen, Groll? To thinck of this would give a litle vent To the windy bladder of your vanitie Which you have blowne to an unlymitted vastnes.

Sit, my Victoria, sit, my faire Bellina, And with attention hearken to my dreame: Methought one evening, sitting on a fragrant Virge, Close by there ranne a silver gliding streame: I past the Rivolet and came to a Garden, A Paradise, I should say (for lesse it could not be); Such sweetnesse the world contains not as I saw; Indian Aramaticks nor Arabian Gummes Were nothing sented unto this sweet bower.

Then there is the objection, How can past sins be done away with?

And I past these things with no great thought; for truly they were no matters for notice, after that which I had beheld.

And to such wondrous doing brought his Horse, As had he beene encorps't and demy-Natur'd With the braue Beast, so farre he past my thought,

A Man that has past his Time in the World, has often seen Vice triumphant, and Virtue discountenanced.

THE THREE BEGGARS 'Twas autumn daybreak gold and wild, While past St. Ann's grey tower they shuffled, Three beggars spied a fairy-child In crimson mantle muffled.

I cannot blame thee, Otho, Though thou be ignorant of her high worth, Since here in Saxon we are strangers both; But if thou cal'st to minde why we left Meath, Reade the trice reason in that Ladies eye, Daughter unto the Duke of Saxonie, Shee unto whom so many worthy Lords Vail'd Bonnet when she past the Triangle, Making the pavement Ivory where she trode.

In the country village he sees the church, possibly some old cottages, or an Elizabethan or Jacobean house near; in the churchyard or in the church the tombstones have quaint inscriptions with reference possibly to past wars or to early colonisation.

"Past the innumerable stars, my friend, Past all the winds that blow, We, too, must travel to our journey's end.

I was much pleased with a conversation I had with an old-fashioned labouring man who, though not past middle age, appeared to be incapacitated from work owing to a "game leg," and whom I found sitting under a walnut tree in the manor grounds hard by the brook.

Then I've past my word at the George Tavern, for forty Shillings for you, ten Shillings at my Neighbour Squabs for Ale, besides seven Shillings to Mother Suds for Washing; and do you fob me off with my Husband? Gay.