Poem by Charles Lamb

Home Delights

To operas and balls my cousins take me,
And fond of plays my new-made friend would make me.
In summer season, when the days are fair,
In my godmother's coach I take the air.
My uncle has a stately pleasure barge,
Gilded and gay, adorned with wondrous charge;
The mast is polished, and the sails are fine,
The awnings of white silk like silver shine;
The seats of crimson satin, where the rowers
Keep time to music with their painted oars;
In this on holidays we oft resort
To Richmond, Twickenham, or to Hampton Court.
By turns we play, we sing-one baits the hook,
Another angles-some more idle look
At the small fry that sport beneath the tides,
Or at the swan that on the surface glides.
My married sister says there is no feast
Equal to sight of foreign bird or beast.
With her in search of these I often roam:
My kinder parents make me blest at home.
Tired of excursions, visitings, and sights,
No joys are pleasing to these home delights.

1. A Timid Grace Sits Trembling in Her Eye
2. Incorrect Speaking
3. Blindness
4. Written Christmas Day 1797
5. The Sister's Expostulation on the Brother's Learning Latin

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