[435] As Charles Lamb retired to Enfield in 1826, these lines cannot have been composed much later than that year, although they were not published till 1842. Lamb wrote thus to Wordsworth on the 6th of April 1825: "I came home FOR EVER on Tuesday in last week. The incomprehensibleness of my condition overwhelmed me. It was like passing from life into eternity. ... I wandered about, thinking I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing off, and I begin to understand the nature of the gift. Holidays, even the annual month, were always uneasy joys: their conscious fugitiveness; the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all is holiday, there are no holidays. I can sit at home, in rain or shine, without a restless impulse for walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall soon find it as natural to me to be my own master, as it has been irksome to have had a master. Mary wakes every morning with an obscure feeling that some good has happened to us."--ED. [436] See Thomson's lines _To the Reverend Patrick Murdoch_, Rector of Stradishall, in Suffolk, 1738, l. 10.--ED. 1827 The poems composed in 1827 were for the most part sonnets. But several of those first published in 1827 evidently belong to an earlier year, the date of which it is impossible to discover.--ED. ON SEEING A NEEDLECASE IN THE FORM OF A HARP THE WORK OF E. M. S.[437] Composed 1827.--Published 1827 One of the "Poems of the Fancy."--ED. Frowns are on every Muse's face, Reproaches from their lips are sent, That mimicry should thus disgrace The noble Instrument. A very Harp in all but size! 5 Needles for strings in apt gradation! Minerva's self would stigmatize The unclassic profanation. Even her _own_ needle that subdued Arachne's rival spirit,[438] 10 Though wrought in Vulcan's happiest mood, Such honour[439] could not merit. And this, too, from the Laureate's Child, A living lord of melody! How will her Sire be reconciled 15 To the refined indignity? I spake, when whispered a low voice, "Bard! moderate your ire; Spirits of all degrees rejoice In presence of the lyre. 20 The Minstrels of Pygmean bands,[440] Dwarf Genii, moonlight-loving Fays, Have shells to fit their tiny hands And suit their slender lays. Some, still more delicate of ear, 25 Have lutes (believe my words) Whose framework is of gossamer, While sunbeams are the chords. Gay Sylphs[B] this miniature will court, Made vocal by their brushing wings, 30 And sullen Gnomes[441] will learn to sport Around its polished strings;