The present sonnet belongs to the series of four love sonnets which is completed by the one that follows, "Methinks, how dainty sweet it were," and those on page 8 beginning, "When last I roved" and "A timid grace." Anna is believed to have been Ann Simmons, who lived at Blenheims, a group of cottages near Blakesware, the house where Mrs. Field, Lamb's grandmother, was housekeeper. Mrs. Field died in 1792, after which time Lamb's long visits to that part of the country probably ceased. He was then seventeen. Nothing is known of Lamb's attachment beyond these sonnets, the fact that when he lost his reason for a short time in 1795-1796 he attributed the cause to some person unmentioned who is conjectured to have been Anna, and the occasional references in the Ella essays to "Alice W----" and to his old passion for her (see "Dream Children" in particular, in Vol. II). The death of Mrs. Lamb in September, 1796, and the duty of caring for and nursing his sister Mary, which then devolved upon Charles, put an end to any dreams of private happiness that he may have been indulging; and his little romance was over. How deep his passion was we are not likely ever to know; but Lamb thenceforward made very light of it, except in the pensive recollections in the essays twenty-five years later. In November, 1796, when sending Coleridge poems for his second edition, he says: "Do not entitle any of my _things_ Love Sonnets, as I told you to call 'em; 'twill only make me look little in my own eyes; for it is a passion of which I retain nothing.... Thank God, the folly has left me for ever. Not even a review of my love verses renews one wayward wish in me...." Again, in November, 1796, in another letter to Coleridge, about his poems in the 1797 edition, Lamb says: "Oh, my friend! I think sometimes, could I recall the days that are past, which among them should I choose? not those 'merrier days,' not the 'pleasant days of hope,' not 'those wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid,' which I have so often and so feelingly regretted, but the days, Coleridge, of a _mother's_ fondness for her _school-boy_." Lamb printed this sonnet three times--in 1796, 1797 and 1818. * * * * * Page 5. _Methinks how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd._ When this sonnet was printed by Coleridge in 1796 the sestet was made to run thus:-- But ah! sweet scenes of fancied bliss, adieu! On rose-leaf beds amid your faery bowers I all too long have lost the dreamy hours! Beseems it now the sterner Muse to woo, If haply she her golden meed impart, To realise the vision of the heart. Lamb remonstrated: "I had rather have seen what I wrote myself, though they bear no comparison with your exquisite lines-- "On rose-leaf'd beds, amid your faery bowers, etc. I love my sonnets because they are the reflected images of my Own feelings at different times." This sonnet was printed by Lamb three times--in 1796, 1797 and 1798.