EPICEDIUM
Reading edition
GOING OR GONE
(1827)
I
Fine merry franions, Wanton companions, My days are ev'n banyans With thinking upon ye; How Death, that last stinger, Finis-writer, end-bringer, Has laid his chill finger, Or is laying on ye.
II
There's rich Kitty Wheatley, With footing it featly That took me completely, She sleeps in the Kirk House; And poor Polly Perkin, Whose Dad was still firking The jolly ale firkin, She's gone to the Work-house;
III
Fine Gard'ner, Ben Carter (In ten counties no smarter) Has ta'en his departure For Proserpine's orchards; And Lily, postillion, With cheeks of vermilion, Is one of a million That fill up the church-yards;
IV
And, lusty as Dido, Fat Clemitson's widow Flits now a small shadow By Stygian hid ford; And good Master Clapton Has thirty years nap't on The ground he last hap't on, Intomb'd by fair Widford;
V
And gallant Tom Dockwra, Of nature's finest crockery, Now but thin air and mockery, Lurks by Avernus, Whose honest grasp of hand Still, while his life did stand, At friend's or foe's command, Almost did burn us.
VI
Roger de Coverley Not more good man than he; Yet has he equally Push'd for Cocytus, With drivelling Worral, And wicked old Dorrell, 'Gainst whom I've a quarrel, Whose end might affright us!—
VII
Kindly hearts have I known; Kindly hearts, they are flown; Here and there if but one Linger yet uneffaced, Imbecile tottering elves, Soon to be wreck'd on shelves, These scarce are half themselves, With age and care crazed.
VIII
But this day Fanny Hutton Her last dress has put on; Her fine lessons forgotten, She died, as the dunce died: And prim Betsy Chambers, Decay'd in her members, No longer remembers Things, as she once did;
IX
And prudent Miss Wither Not in jest now doth wither, And soon must go—whither Nor I well, nor you know; And flaunting Miss Waller, That soon must befal her, Whence none can recal her, Though proud once as Juno![11]
[Footnote 11: Here came, in Album Verses, 1830, "The Wife's Trial," for which see page 273, where it is placed with Lamb's other plays.]