And oft to after times shall tell, omitted
_In life's young prime my Hero fell_."

[Sidenote: Is "_morbid_ wantonness of woe" a good and allowable phrase?]

At length I have done with verse making. Not that I relish other
people's poetry less,--theirs comes from 'em without effort, mine is the
difficult operation of a brain scanty of ideas, made more difficult by
disuse. I have been reading the "Task" with fresh delight. I am glad you
love Cowper. I could forgive a man for not enjoying Milton, but I would
not call that man my friend, who should be offended with the "divine
chit-chat of Cowper." Write to me.--God love you and yours,

C. L.

[The name of the young lady going out to India is not known; the verses
were printed in the _Monthly Magazine_ for March, 1797, but not in
Coleridge's _Poems_, 1797. "The Tomb of Douglas" was included in that
volume. The poem in which the alteration "pain and want" was to be made
(but was not made, or was made and cancelled later) was "Fancy Employed
on Divine Subjects."

The "divine chit-chat of Cowper" was Coleridge's own phrase. It is a
pretty circumstance that Lamb and Cowper now share (with Keats) a
memorial in Edmonton church.]

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