Poem by Frederick Locker-Lampson

Old Letters

    “Fragile creations of still frailer man,
          That men outlast,
    Though to eternity, from whence he came,
          The scribe be past.

    O there are tongues within these dry brown leaves
          That speak as Autumns do;
    They cry of death and sorrow,
          To me—to you.”

    Mr George Thornbury.

Old letters! wipe away the tear,
   And gaze upon these pale mementoes,
A pilgrim finds his journal here
   Since first he took to walk on ten toes.

Yes, here are scrawls from Clapham Rise,
   Do mothers still their school-boys pamper?
O, how I hated Doctor Wise!
   O, how I lov’d a well-fill’d hamper!

How strange to commune with the Dead—
   Dead joys, dead loves, and wishes thwarted:
Here’s cruel proof of friendships fled,
   And sad enough of friends departed.

And here’s the offer that I wrote
   In ’33 to Lucy Diver;
And here John Wylie’s begging note—
   He never paid me back a stiver.

And here my feud with Major Spike,
   Our bet about the French Invasion;
On looking back I acted like
   A donkey upon that occasion.

And here a letter from “the Row,”—
   How mad I was when first I learnt it!
They would not take my Book, and now
   I’d give a trifle to have burnt it.

And here a heap of notes, at last,
   With “love” and “dove,” and “sever” “never”—
Though hope, though passion may be past,
   Their perfume is as sweet as ever.

A human heart should beat for two,
   Whatever say your single scorners,
And all the hearths I ever knew
   Had got a pair of chimney corners.

See here a double violet—
   Two locks of hair—a deal of scandal:
I’ll burn what only brings regret—
   Go, Betty, fetch a lighted candle.

1. The Old Clerk
2. The Widow’s Mite
3. A Word That Makes Us Linger
4. Vanity Fair
5. Phœbe, the Nymph of the Well

Norman Gale Old Letters ("LAST night some yellow letters fell")

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