The poem is addressed to Lamb's mother. Lamb seems to have sent a copy to Southey, although the letter containing it has not been perserved, for we find Southey passing it on to his friend C.W.W. Wynn on November 29, 1797, with a commendation: "I know that our tastes differ much in poetry, and yet I think you must like these lines by Charles Lamb." The following passage in Rosamund Gray, which Lamb was writing at this time, is curiously like these poems in tone. It occurs in one of the letters from Elinor Clare to her friend--letters in which Lamb seems to describe sometimes his own feelings, and sometimes those of his sister, on their great sorrow:-- "Maria! shall not the meeting of blessed spirits, think you, be something like this?--I think, I could even now behold my mother without dread--I would ask pardon of her for all my past omissions of duty, for all the little asperities in my temper, which have so often grieved her gentle spirit when living. Maria! I think she would not turn away from me. "Oftentimes a feeling, more vivid than memory, brings her before me--I see her sit in her old elbow chair--her arms folded upon her lap--a tear upon her cheek, that seems to upbraid her unkind daughter for some inattention--I wipe it away and kiss her honored lips. "Maria! when I have been fancying all this, Allan will come in, with his poor eyes red with weeping, and taking me by the hand, destroy the vision in a moment. "I am prating to you, my sweet cousin, but it is the prattle of the heart, which Maria loves. Besides, whom have I to talk to of these things but you--you have been my counsellor in times past, my companion, and sweet familiar friend. Bear with me a little--I mourn the 'cherishers of my infancy.'" * * * * * Page 25. _Written on Christmas Day, 1797_. Mary Lamb, to whom these lines were addressed, after seeming to be on the road to perfect recovery, had suddenly had a relapse necessitating a return to confinement from the lodging in which her brother had placed her. Page 25. _The Old Familiar Faces_. This, the best known of all Lamb's poems, was written in January, 1798, following, it is suggested, upon a fit of resentment against Charles Lloyd. Writing to Coleridge in that month Lamb tells of that little difference, adding, "but he has forgiven me." Mr. J.A. Rutter, who, through Canon Ainger, enunciated this theory, thinks that Lloyd may be the "friend" of the fourth stanza, and Coleridge the "friend" of the sixth. The old--but untenable--supposition was that it was Coleridge whom Lamb had left abruptly. On the other hand it might possibly have been James White, especially as he was of a resolutely high-spirited disposition. In its 1798 form the poem began with this stanza:-- Where are they gone, the old familiar faces? I had a mother, but she died, and left me, Died prematurely in a day of horrors-- All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.