inclination to go to work upon it--or is it too late--or do you think it
needs none? Don't reject those verses in one of your Watchmen--"Dear
native brook," &c.--nor, I think, those last lines you sent me, in which
"all effortless" is without doubt to be preferred to "inactive." If I am
writing more than ordinarily dully, 'tis that I am stupified with a
tooth-ache. 37, would not the concluding lines of the 1st paragraph be
well omitted--& it go on "So to sad sympathies" &c.? In 40, if you
retain it, "wove" the learned Toil is better than "urge," which spoils
the personification. Hang it, do not omit 48. 52. 53. What you do retain
tho', call sonnets for God's sake, and not effusions,--spite of your
ingenious anticipation of ridicule in your Preface. The last 5 lines of
50 are too good to be lost, the rest is not much worth. My tooth becomes
importunate--I must finish. Pray, pray, write to me: if you knew with
what an anxiety of joy I open such a long packet as you last sent me,
you would not grudge giving a few minutes now and then to this
intercourse (the only intercourse, I fear we two shall ever have), this
conversation, with your friend--such I boast to be called.

God love you and yours.

Write to me when you move, lest I direct wrong.

Has Sara no poems to publish? Those lines 129 are probably too light for
the volume where the Religious Musings are--but I remember some very
beautiful lines addrest by somebody at Bristol to somebody at London.

God bless you once more.

C. LAMB.