| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The Lamp | | By Charles Whitehead (1804–1862) |
| | | AS yonder lamp in my vacated room | |
| With arduous flame disputes the darksome night, | |
| And can, with its involuntary light, | |
| But lifeless things, that near it stand, illume; | |
| Yet all the while it doth itself consume, | 5 |
| And, ere the sun begins its heavenly height | |
| With courier beams that meet the shepherd’s sight, | |
| There, whence its life arose, shall be its tomb— | |
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| So wastes my light away. Perforce confined | |
| To common things, a limit to its sphere, | 10 |
| It shines on worthless trifles undesign’d | |
| With fainter ray each hour imprison’d here. | |
| Alas! to know that the consuming mind | |
| Shall leave its lamp cold, ere the sun appear. | | | | |
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