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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  Charles Lamb (1775–1834)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

I. To Miss Kelly, the Actress

Charles Lamb (1775–1834)

YOU are not, Kelly, of the common strain,

That stoop their pride and female honor down

To please that many-headed beast, The Town,

And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for gain;

By fortune thrown amid the actor’s train,

You keep your native dignity of thought;

The plaudits that attend you come unsought,

As tributes due unto your natural vein.

Your tears have passion in them, and a grace

Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow;

Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot trace,

That vanish and return we know not how,—

And please the better from a pensive face,

A thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.