Metrical Friday: ‘Parental Recollections’

Parental Recollections
By Charles Lamb

A child’s a plaything for an hour;
     Its pretty tricks we try
For that or for a longer space;
     Then tire, and lay it by.

But I knew one, that to itself
     All seasons could controul;
That would have mock’d the sense of pain
     Out of a grieved soul.

Thou, straggler into loving arms,
     Young climber up of knees,
When I forget thy thousand ways,
     Then life and all shall cease.