272. Robert Southey to Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, [12 November 1797]*

Sunday.Bath.My dear Wynn

All the blunders concerning Coke¹ will soon be over I hope, my letter to Wynnstay, & what I have this day written to Sancho will explain them — & the book will soon be here I suppose.

For my little poem in the Magazine. ² Philips³ had been some year & half importuning me for my name, & I did not like the appearance of pride in refusing it. the piece pleased me. look at the word very as there used again — it occurs twice — & you will find that in the last place it is used as an adjective, & no other word could so well supply it. in the first — it scarcely — even to my own ear seems expletive “It was a very plain & simple tale. By the by I called it a plain tale — to which Philips or Aikin absurdly tacked on a syllable & made it ridiculous — plaintive! it was written at Burton — the mere recital of what happened near our lodgings.

You will be surprized perhaps at hearing that Cowpers⁴ poem does not at all please me. you must have heard it in some moment when your mind was predisposed to be pleased, & the first impression has remained. indeed I think it — not above mediocrity — I cannot trace the Author of the Task in one line. I know that our tastes differ much in poetry. & yet I think you must like these lines by Charles Lamb. I believe you know his history — & the dreadful death of his mother.

Thou shouldst have longer lived, & to the graveHave peacefully gone down in full old age.Thy children would have tended thy gray hairs;We might have sat, as we have often done,By our fire side, & talkd whole nights away,Old times, old friends & old events recalling,With many a circumstance of trivial note,To memory dear & of importance grown.How shall we tell them in a strangers ear!

A wayward son oft times was I to thee,And yet in all our little bickeringsDomestic jars, there was I know not whatOf tender feeling, that were ill exchangedFor this worlds chilling friendships, & their smilesFamiliar, whom the heart calls strangers still.

A heavy lot hath he, most wretched man,Who lives the last of all his family.He looks around him, & his eye discernsThe face of the stranger, & his heart is sick.Man of the World, what canst thou do for him?Wealth is a burthen which he could not bear,Mirth a strange crime the which he dares not act,And generous wines x no cordial to his soul.For wounds like his Christ is the only cure.Go — preach thou to him of a world to come,Where friends shall meet & know each others faceSay less than this, — & say it to the winds.⁵

———

I am aware of the danger of studying simplicity of language. but you will find in my blank verse a fullness of phrase when the subject requires it. these lines may instance

it was a goodly sightTo see the embattled pomp, as with the stepOf stateliness the barbed steeds came on,To see the pennons rolling their long wavesBefore the gale, & banners broad & brightTossing their blazonry, & high-plumed ChiefsVidames & Seneschalls & Chastellains,Gay with their bucklers gorgeous heraldryAnd silken surcoats on the buoyant windBillowing. ⁶

God bless you. I come to London Monday the 20th.

yrs affectionately R Southey.