Lamb, Caroline, Lady, "To a Friend, On Sending a Fancy Drawing, After Promising Her Own Picture in the Character of a Gypsey." in The Bijou; (London: William Pickering , 1828)
   
      
         
            
               The Bijou; 
               or Annual of Literature and the Arts
            
            compiled by William Fraser
            
            
               
                  William Pickering
               
               London
            
            1828
            
               
                  pp. 89-90
               
            
         
      
      
         
             89 
            
               To a Friend, 
               On Sending a Fancy Drawing, After Promising Her Own Picture
                  in the Character of a Gypsey
            
            
               By Lady Caroline
                  Lamb
            
            
               THE glowing tints beneath thy care
               Have traced a form divinely fair,
               Have given it charms and beauties rare,
               And shown the power of art;
               But in the ideal head I trace,
               No features of the gypsey's face,
               The living smile, the nameless grace,
               That nature doth impart.
            
            
            
               Here roving looks, and eyes of fire,
               Awake the soul of young desire; — 
               The spells — which Beauty may inspire,
               By thee are well exprest.
               But soon the varying tints will fade,
               And time with leaden hand shall shade,
               The colours that once vivid played
               In thy bright eye and breast!
            
            
             90 
            
               So hope that paints our morning sky,
               When viewed with youth's unclouded eye;
               So pleasures airy dreams must fly
               O'erpowered with care and gloom.
               For life's a fearful passing dream,
               And those that gay and thoughtless seem,
               Alike sail down its swelling stream
               To meet the general doom.