And here's to the friend, the one friend of my youth,
With a head full of genius, a heart full of truth,
Who travelled with me in the sunshine of life,
And stood by my side in its peace and its strife!
Would you know where to seek a blessing so rare?
Go drag the lone sea, you may find him there.
And here's to a brace of twin cherubs of mine,
With hearts like their mother's, as pure as this wine,
Who came but to see the first act of the play,
Grew tired of the scene, and then both went away.
Would you know where this brace of bright cherubs have hied? Go seek them in heaven, for there they abide.
A bumper, my boys! to a gray-headed pair,
Who watched o'er my childhood with tenderest care,
God bless them, and keep them, and may they look down,
On the head of their son, without tear, sigh, or frown!
Would you know whom I drink to? go seek mid the dead,
You will find both their names on the stone at their head.
And here's-but alas! the good wine is no more,
The bottle is emptied of all its bright store;
Like those we have toasted, its spirit is fled,
And nothing is left of the light that it shed.
Then, a bumper of tears, boys! the banquet here ends,
With a health to our dead, since we've no living friends.
By the patriot's hallowed rest,
By the warrior's gory breast,—
Never let our graves be pressed
By a despot's throne;
By the pilgrims' toils and cares,
By their battles and their prayers,
By their ashes,-let our heirs
Bow to thee alone.
THE TRUE GLORY OF AMERICA.
ITALIA'S vales and fountains,
Though beautiful ye be,
I love my soaring mountains
And forests more than ye;
And though a dreamy greatness rise
From out your cloudy years,
Like hills on distant stormy skies,
Seen dim through Nature's tears,
Still, tell me not of years of old,
Of ancient heart and clime;
Ours is the land and age of gold,
And ours the hallowed time!
The jewelled crown and sceptre
Of Greece have passed away;
And none, of all who wept her,
Could bid her splendor stay.
The world has shaken with the tread
Of iron-sandalled crime--
And lo! o'ershadowing all the dead,
The conqueror stalks sublime!
Then ask I not for crown and plume
To nod above my land;
The victor's footsteps point to doom,
Graves open round his hand!
Rome! with thy pillared palaces,
And sculptured heroes all,
Snatched, in their warm, triumphal days,
To Art's high festival;
Rome with thy giant sons of power,
Whose pathway was on thrones,
Who built their kingdoms of an hour
On yet unburied bones,--
I would not have my land like thee,
So lofty-yet so cold!
Be hers a lowlier majesty,
In yet a nobler mould.
Thy marbles-works of wonder!
In thy victorious days,
Whose lips did seem to sunder
Before the astonished gaze;
When statue glared on statue there,
The living on the dead,-
And men as silent pilgrims were
Before some sainted head!
O, not for faultless marbles yet
Would I the light forego
That beams when other lights have set,
And Art herself lies low!
O, ours a holier hope shall be
Than consecrated bust,
Some loftier mean of memory
To snatch us from the dust.
And ours a sterner art than this,
Shall fix our image here,-
The spirit's mould of loveliness-
A nobler Belvidere !
Then let them bind with bloomless flowers
The busts and urns of old,
A fairer heritage be ours,
A sacrifice less cold!
Give honor to the great and good,
And wreathe the living brow,
Kindling with Virtue's mantling blood,
And pay the tribute now!
So, when the good and great go down,
Their statues shall arise,
To crowd those temples of our own,
Our fadeless memories!
And when the sculptured marble falls,
And Art goes in to die,
Our forms shall live in holier halls,
The Pantheon of the sky!
ALL night the lonely suppliant prayed,
All night his earnest crying made;
Till, standing by his side at morn,
The Tempter said in bitter scorn :—
"Oh, peace!—what profit do you gain
From empty words and babblings vain?
'Come, Lord--oh, come!' you cry alway;
You pour your heart out night and day;
Yet still no murmur of reply-
No voice that answers, 'Here am I.'"
Then sank that stricken heart in dust,
That word had withered all its trust;
No strength retained it now to pray,
For Faith and Hope had fled away:
And ill that mourner now had fared,
Thus by the Tempter's art ensnared,
But that at length beside his bed
His sorrowing angel stood, and said :—
"Doth it repent thee of thy love,
That never now is heard above
Thy prayer, that now not any more
It knocks at heaven's gate as before?"
-"I am cast out-I find no place,
No hearing at the throne of grace:
'Come, Lord-oh, come I cry alway;
I pour my heart out night and day;
Yet never until now have won
The answer- Here am I, my son.'
-"Oh, dull of heart! enclosed doth lie,
In each Come, Lord,' a Here am I.'
Thy love, thy longing, are not thine,
Reflections of a love divine:
Thy very prayer to thee was given,
Itself a messenger from heaven.
Whom God rejects, they are not so;
Strong bands are round them in their woe;
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