TO THE SAME.

Live we in the present ever?

Rules the Spring the tides of time?

Must our life be one endeavor

To persuade ourselves that never

Shall joy end beyond its prime?

Though the past leaves many a token
That fond hoping may be vain,
And the words we've heard and spoken,
And the idols we have broken,

May not come to us again,

Yet, to doubt shall not restore us

Thought or feeling doomed to die;

And to dread to look before us,
Lest a cloud, unseen, be o'er us,
Is a treason to the sky.

To be trembling o'er affections,

When they cluster thick and kind,

Greeting them with cold reflections,
On the chance of indirections,

Is to love with but the mind!

Every season a new glory

To the poet-heart will bring;

And it is not true, the story

That all good is transitory,

Like the gladness of the Spring.

Then our fancies are unruly

When they whisper "Change is near!"

And we live not well or truly,

But we scan our joys unduly,

If we greet them but in fear.

Neither man nor earth should sorrow
That the flowers must pass away;

For the year will surely borrow

Golden harvests for to-morrow,

From the seed-time of to-day!

TO A FRIEND.

We may have bliss, in after days,
For life hath often plenty,
And joy hath just begun its blaze
When we are one-and-twenty.

But with its joy, life brings its care-
Bright suns go down in sorrow;
The brow that's glad to-day, may wear
A veil of woe to-morrow.

The hands that grasp, the lips that smile,

In after days deceive us ;

And many a web of darkest wile

The best beloved may weave us.

Then, let us bid old Memory fling
Her robe of jewels o'er us;

Let's pledge our life's unclouded spring
With all the flowers it bore us.

Dream of the chase at break of day
Along the laurelled mountain,
And bless the moments when we lay
Cool by the noon-tide fountain.

Let's think of when we watch'd the sun
Go down in golden glory,

And how the moonlight's magic won

Our hearts to song and story!

The feast, by sportive toil made sweet,
Shall spread itself before us,

And fancy twine each sylvan seat

With the old boughs bending o'er us.

But most, when Memory backward throws Her glances, may she guide us, Unchanged, unchanging, back to those

Whose hearts then beat beside us!

They happier made each happy day,
And shall we not remember

The friends who cheered our sunny May,
E'en in our bleak December?

NO MORE!

A child was born, as midnight's clang
Upon the heavy silence fell,

And round the chamber voices rang

More solemn than that awful bell:

One only burden, sad, they bore"No more! no more!"

The tears on childhood's cheek are dry,
For those who watched life's opening flower,

And brightly gleams, in youth's wild eye,
The sunlight of hope's reigning hour.
Clouds come-change-parting-as before,
Life shines no more!

Bend yonder gentle bough aside,

And look ye, where, in saddened grove,

Lips beautiful in scorn, deride

The humble vow! The beam of love That gilded life's cold mountains o'er, Hath gold no more!

See where the world-worn man, alone,

At tearful eve, from crowd and strife Unto his silent hearth hath gone,

And poiseth there the scales of life! The blossoms of the time of yore, Now bloom no more!

And to that thoughtful hour he brings
The memories of yearnings past;
He hears Ambition's failing wings,
Receding, beat the distant blast;
And, high, the tempest's echoes o'er,
Still rings "no more!"

Ay, gather up the hope, the joy,

The love, the friendships, all that gave Green paths before him to the boy,

And sparkling crest to manhood's wave, While they and all the bliss they bore Return no more!

Go seek! ah, no-why seek the woe
That feelings wrung have always nigh?

Go crop the bitter weeds that grow

Each blasted hope's cold gravestone by, And mark how sorrow's withered store Grows evermore!

Yet, though 'tis true the forms we love
Cannot be always by our side,