Explore "Cleanliness" by Charles Lamb on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Come, my little Robert, near -- / Fie! what filthy hands are here! / Who, that e'er could understand / The rare structure of a hand, / With its branching fingers fine, / Work itself of hands divine, / Strong, yet delicately knit, / For ten thousand uses fit, / Overlaid with so clear skin / You may see the blood within, -- / Who this hand would choose to cover / With a crust of dirt all over, / Till it look'd in hue and shape / Like the forefoot of an ape! / Man or boy that works or plays / In the fields or the highways, / May, without offence or hurt, / From the soil contract a dirt / Which the next clear spring or river / Washes out and out for ever --
But to cherish stains impure, / Soil deliberate to endure, / On the skin to fix a stain / Till it works into the grain, / Argues a degenerate mind, / Sordid, slothful, ill-inclined, / Wanting in that self-respect / Which does virtue best protect.