Explore "Written in the First Leaf of a Child's Memorandum Book" by Charles Lamb on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
My neat and pretty book, when I thy small lines see, / They seem for any use to be unfit for me: / My writing, all misshaped, uneven as my mind, / Within this narrow space can hardly be confined.
Yet I will strive to make my hand less awkward look; / I would not willingly disgrace thee, my neat book! / The finest pens I'll use, and wondrous pains I'll take, / And I these perfect lines my monitors will make.
And every day I will set down in order due / How that day wasted is; and should there be a few / At the year's end that show more goodly to the sight, / If haply here I find some days not wasted quite, / If a small portion of them I have pass'd aright, / Then shall I think the year not wholly was misspent, / And that my Diary has been by some good angel sent.