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Title: Going Or Gone [epicedium]
Author: Charles Lamb [
More Titles by Lamb]
(1827)
I
Fine merry franions,
Wanton companions,
My days are ev'n banyans
With thinking upon ye;
How Death, that last stinger,
Finis-writer, end-bringer,
Has laid his chill finger,
Or is laying on ye.
II
There's rich Kitty Wheatley,
With footing it featly
That took me completely,
She sleeps in the Kirk House;
And poor Polly Perkin,
Whose Dad was still firking
The jolly ale firkin,
She's gone to the Work-house;
III
Fine Gard'ner, Ben Carter
(In ten counties no smarter)
Has ta'en his departure
For Proserpine's orchards;
And Lily, postillion,
With cheeks of vermilion,
Is one of a million
That fill up the church-yards;
IV
And, lusty as Dido,
Fat Clemitson's widow
Flits now a small shadow
By Stygian hid ford;
And good Master Clapton
Has thirty years nap't on
The ground he last hap't on,
Intomb'd by fair Widford;
V
And gallant Tom Dockwra,
Of nature's finest crockery,
Now but thin air and mockery,
Lurks by Avernus,
Whose honest grasp of hand
Still, while his life did stand,
At friend's or foe's command,
Almost did burn us.
VI
Roger de Coverley
Not more good man than he;
Yet has he equally
Push'd for Cocytus,
With drivelling Worral,
And wicked old Dorrell,
'Gainst whom I've a quarrel,
Whose end might affright us!--
VII
Kindly hearts have I known;
Kindly hearts, they are flown;
Here and there if but one
Linger yet uneffaced,
Imbecile tottering elves,
Soon to be wreck'd on shelves,
These scarce are half themselves,
With age and care crazed.
VIII
But this day Fanny Hutton
Her last dress has put on;
Her fine lessons forgotten,
She died, as the dunce died:
And prim Betsy Chambers,
Decay'd in her members,
No longer remembers
Things, as she once did;
IX
And prudent Miss Wither
Not in jest now doth _wither_,
And soon must go--whither
Nor I well, nor you know;
And flaunting Miss Waller,
_That_ soon must befal her,
Whence none can recal her,
Though proud once as Juno![1]
[Footnote 1: Here came, in _Album Verses_, 1830, "The Wife's Trial," for which see page 273, where it is placed with Lamb's other plays.]
[The end]
Charles Lamb's poem: Going Or Gone [epicedium]
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