Turning some moth-pierced book,
        Feel’st a sharp and sudden woe
        For visions vanished long ago! 
        And then thou think’st how time has fled
        Over thy unsilvered head,
        Snatching many a fellow mind
        Away, and leaving—­what?—­behind! 
        Nought, alas! save joy and pain
        Mingled ever, like a strain
        Of music where the discords vie
        With the truer harmony. 
        So, perhaps, with thee the vein
        Is sullied ever,—­so the chain
        Of habits and affections old,
        Like a weight of solid gold,
        Presseth on thy gentle breast,
        Till sorrow rob thee of thy rest.

        Ay:  so’t must be!—­Ev’n I, (whose lot
        The fairy Love so long forgot,)
        Seated beside this Sherris wine,
        And near to books and shapes divine,
        Which poets, and the painters past
        Have wrought in lines that aye shall last,—­
        Ev’n I, with Shakspeare’s self beside me,
        And one whose tender talk can guide me
        Through fears, and pains, and troublous themes,
        Whose smile doth fall upon my dreams
        Like sunshine on a stormy sea,—­
        Want something—­when I think of thee!

LIST OF LETTERS

ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED

Aders, Charles, to Jan. 8, 1823
Ainsworth, W. Harrison, to May 7, 1822
Dec. 9, 1823
Dec. 29, —­
Aitken, J., to July 5, 1825
Allsop, Thomas, to July 13, 1820
? 1821
? —­
March 30, —­
Oct. 21, —­
July, 1823
Sept. 6, —­
Sept. 9, —­
Sept. 10, —­
Sept. —­
?  Oct. —­
Jan. 17, 1825
Sept. 9, —­
Sept. 24, —­
Dec. 5, —­
?  Middle
Dec., 1827
Dec. 20, —­
Jan. 9, 1828
May 1, —­
Jan. 28, 1829
Late July, —­
July 2, 1832
Mrs. Thomas, to April 13, 1824
Arnold, S.J., to (from Charles and Mary Lamb) No date. 
Asbury, Jacob Vale, to ?  April, 1830
No date.
Athenaeum, printer of, to No date. 1834

Ayrton, William, to May 12, 1817
Oct. 27, 1821
March 14, 1830
Mrs. William, to Jan. 23, 1821
March 15, —­
(from Mary Lamb) No date. 
April 16, 1833

Barton, Bernard, to Sept. 11, 1822
Oct. 9, —­
Dec. 23, —­
Jan. 9, 1823
Feb. 17, —­
March 11, —­
April 5, —­
May 3, —­
July 10, —­
Sept. 2, —­
Sept. 17, —­
Nov. 22, —­
Jan. 9, 1824