Explore "Hester" by Charles Lamb on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When maidens such as Hester die, / Their place ye may not well supply, / Though ye among a thousand try / With vain endeavour.
A month or more hath she been dead, / Yet cannot I by force be led / To think upon the wormy bed, / And her together.
A springy motion in her gait, / A rising step, did indicate / Of pride and joy no common rate, / That flush'd her spirit.
I know not by what name beside / It may be call'd; if 'twas not pride, / It was a joy to that allied / She did inherit.
Her parents held the Quaker rule, / Which doth the human feeling cool, / But she was train'd in Nature's school, / Nature had blest her.
A waking eye, a prying mind, / A heart that stirs is hard to bind, / A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind, / Ye could not Hester.
My sprightly neighbour, gone before / To that unknown and silent shore, / Shall we not meet, as heretofore, / Some summer morning, / When from thy cheerful eyes a ray / Hath struck a bliss upon the day, / A bliss that would not go away, / A sweet forewarning?