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FRIENDSHIP.

Friendsnip! that thought is all thine own,
Worth worlds of bliss that thought alone-
"Friendship is love without his wings ""

DYRON.

STANZAS TO AN OLD FRIEND.

COME, here's a health to thee and thine!
Trust me, whate'er we may be told,
Few things are better than old wine,
When tasted with a friend that's old.
We're happy yet: and in our track
New pleasures if we may not find,
There is a charm in looking back
On sunny prospects left behind.

Like that famed hill in western clime, Through gaudy noontide dark and bare,

That tinges still, at vesper time,

With purple gleam the evening air;

188

STANZAS TO AN OLD FRIEND.

So there's a joy in former days,

In times, and scenes, and thoughts gone by, As beautiful their heads they raise,

Bright in imagination's sky.

Time's glass is filled with varied sand,
With fleeting joy and transient grief;
We'll turn, and with no sparing hand,
O'er many a strange fantastic leaf;
And fear not but, 'mid many a blot,

There are some pages written fair,
And flowers, that time can wither not
Preserved, still faintly fragrant there.

As the hushed night glides gentlier on,
Our music shall break forth its strain,
And tell of pleasures that are gone,

And heighten those that yet remain;
And that creative breath divine

Shall waken many a slumbering thrill,
And call forth many a mystic line
Of faded joys remembered still.

Again the moments shall she bring,

When Youth was in his freshest prime;

We'll pluck the roses that shall spring
Upon the grave of buried time.

There's magic in the olden song ;-
Yea, e'en ecstatic are the tears
Which steal adown our smiles among,
Roused by the sounds of other years.

And, as the mariner can find

Wild pleasure in the voiced roar Even of the often-dreaded wind

That wrecked his every hope before; If there's a pang that lurks beneathFor youth had pangs-Oh! let it rise! 'Tis sweet to feel the poet breathe The spirit of our former sighs.

We'll hear the strains we heard so oft,
In life's first, warm, impassioned hours,
That fell on our young hearts as soft

As summer dews on summer flowers!
And as the stream, where'er it hies,
Steals something in its purest flow,
Those strains shall taste of ecstacies

O'er which they floated long ago.

Even in our morn when fancy's eye

Glanced sparkling o'er a world of bliss, When joy was young and hope was high,

We could not feel much more than this:

190

TO AN EARLY FRIEND.

Howe'er then time our days devours,
Why should our smile be overcast?
Why should we grieve for fleeting hours?
We find a future in the past.

ANON.

TO AN EARLY FRIEND.

I CANNOT think that thou shouldst pass away,
Whose life to mine is an eternal law,

A piece of nature that can have no flaw,
A new and certain sunrise every day;
But, if thou art to be another ray
About the Sun of life, and art to live
Free from all of thee that was fugitive,
The debt of Love I will more fully pay,
Not downcast with the thought of thee so high,
But rather raised to be a nobler man,
And more divine in my humanity,

As knowing that the waiting eyes which scan
My life, are lighted by a purer being,

And ask meek, calm-browed deeds, with it

agreeing.

LOWELL.

PARTED FRIENDS.

PARTED friends may meet again
When the storms of life are past,
And the spirit, freed from pain,
Basks in friendship that will last.

Worldly cares may sever wide-
Distant far their path may be-
But the bond of Death untied,
They shall once again be free.

Death-the end of care and painDeath-the wretch's happiest meed, Death can break the strongest chain, Death is liberty indeed.

Parted friends again may meet,
From the toils of nature free;
Crown'd with mercy, O! how sweet
Will eternal friendship be!

C. W. THOMPSON.

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