"Yet with these tresses Cupid's power elate
My captive heart hath handcuffed in a chain,
Strong as the cables of some huge first-rate,
That bears Britannia's thunders o'er the main.
"The Sylphs that round her radiant locks repair,
In flowing lustre bathe their brightened wings,
And elfin minstrels with assiduous care,
The ringlets rob for fairy fiddlestrings."
Of course Shufflebottom is tempted to another theft--a rape of the
lock--for which he incurs the fair Delia's condign displeasure--
"She heard the scissors that fair lock divide,
And while my heart with transport panted big,
She cast a fiery frown on me, and cried,
'You stupid puppy--you have spoilt my wig.'"
CHAPTER XII.
Lamb--His Farewell to Tobacco--Pink Hose--On the Melancholy of
Tailors--Roast Pig.
No one ever so finely commingled poetry and humour as Charles Lamb. In
his transparent crystal you are always seeing one colour through
another, and he was conscious of the charm of such combinations, for he
commends Andrew Marvell for such refinement. His early poems printed
with those of Coleridge, his schoolfellow at Christ's Hospital, abounded
with pure and tender sentiment, but never arrested the attention of the
public. We can find in them no promise of the brilliancy for which he
was afterwards so distinguished, except perhaps in his "Farewell to
Tobacco," where for a moment he allowed his Pegasus to take a more
fantastic flight.
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