ithout a cause;_

Love may love, with more applause,
Or, without a reason given,
Charmed be with unknown Heaven.
Keep the secrets, though, unmocked,
Ever in your bosom _Locke'd_.

TO M[ARY] L[OCKE]

_Acrostic_

Must I write with pen unwilling
And describe those graces killing
Rightly, which I never saw?
Yes--it is the Album's law.

Let me then Invention strain
On your excelling charms to feign--
Cold is Fiction? I _believe_ it
Kindly, as I did receive it,
Even as J.F.'s tongue did weave it.

AN ACROSTIC AGAINST ACROSTICS

[_To Edward Hogg_]

Envy not the wretched Poet
Doomed to pen these teasing strains,
Wit so cramped, ah, who can show it,
Are the trifles worth the pains.
Rhyme compared with this were easy,
Double Rhymes may not displease ye.

Homer, Horace sly and caustic,
Owed no fame to vile acrostic.
G's, I am sure, the Readers choked with,
Good men's names must not be joked with.

ON BEING ASKED TO WRITE IN MISS WESTWOOD'S ALBUM

My feeble Muse, that fain her best wou'd
Write, at command of Frances Westwood,
But feels her wits not in their best mood,
Fell lately on some idle fancies,
As she's much given to romances,
About this self-same style as Frances;
Which seems to be a name in common
Attributed to man or woman.
She thence contrived this flattering moral,
With which she hopes no soul will quarrel,
That she, whom this twin title decks,
Combines what's good in either sex;
Unites--how very rare the case is!--
Masculine sense to female graces;
And, quitting not her proper rank,
Is both in one--Fanny, and frank.

12_th October_, 1827.

[IN MISS WESTWOOD'S ALBUM]

_By Mary Lamb_

Small beauty to your Book my lines can lend,
Yet you shall have the best I can, sweet friend,
To serve for poor memorials 'gainst the day
That calls you from your Parent-roof away,
From the mild offices of Filial life