Not drop by drop, with watchful skill,
Gathered in Art's deliberate still,
But life's insensible completeness
Got as the ripe grape gets its sweetness,
As if it had a way to fuse
The golden sunlight into juice.
Poetical Works. (Ward, Lock, and Co.)
SONG FOR A FAMILY PARTY.
YE whose veins are like your glasses, From the same old vineyard fed With a racy generous liquor
Which may Time keep running red! Come, old friends and near relations,
Take the oath we couch in song; Hand-in-hand, come pledge it fairly,
All who've known each other long!
Green heads, grey heads, join in chorus,
All who can or cannot sing;
Put your hearts into your voices
Till we make the old house ring!
Let us swear by all that's kindly,
All the ties of old and young,
We will always know each other
As we've known each other long!
By the house we oft have shaken
House where most of us were bornWhen the dance grew wild and romping, And we kept it up till morn! By the old convivial table
Where we oft have mustered strong; By the glasses we have emptied
To each other's health so long!
By our schoolboy freaks together,
In old days with mischief rife-
Fellowship when youth on pleasure
Flung away redundant life !
By bereavements mourned in common ;
By the hopes, a fluttering throng,
We have felt when home returning,
Parted from each other long!
By the fathers, who, before us,
Silver-haired together grew,
Who so long revered each other-
Let us swear to be as true!
Swear no selfish jealous feeling
E'er shall creep our ranks among,
E'er make strangers of the kinsmen
Who have known each other long!
No! whate'er our creed or party,
Riches, rank, or poverty,
With a second home-without one,
True and trusty still we'll be!
Still we'll drink and dance together,
Gather still in muster strong,
And for ever know each other,
As we've known each other long! ALFRED DOMETT. Flotsam and Jetsam. (Smith, Elder, and Co.)
LET thy soul strive that still the same
Be early friendship's sacred flame.
The affinities have strongest part
In youth, and draw men heart to heart :
As life wears on and finds no rest,
The individual in each breast
Is tyrannous to sunder them.
DANTE G. ROSSETTI. Ballads and Sonnets. (Ellis and White.)
A PICTURE OF GIRL-FRIENDSHIP.
O, AND is all forgot?
All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet a union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem :
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart,
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crownèd with one crest.
And will you rend our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend? It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly :
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.
WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. Midsummer Night's Dream.
EARLY FRIENDSHIP.
THE half-seen memories of childish days,
When pains and pleasures lightly came, and went ;
The sympathies of boyhood rashly spent
In fearful wanderings through forbidden ways;
The vague, but manly, wish to tread the maze
Of life to noble ends; whereon intent,
Asking to know for what man here is sent,
The bravest heart must often pause, and gaze—
The firm resolve to seek the chosen end
Of manhood's judgment, cautious and mature;
Each of these viewless bonds binds friend to friend
With strength no selfish purpose can secure ;-
My happy lot is this, that all attend
That friendship which first came, and which shall last endure.
HON. STEPHEN E. SPRING RICE. [Printed, with other sonnets by the same Author, in Mr. Aubrey de Vere's volume, "Antar and Zara." (K. Paul and Co.)]
(From "Gemini and Virgo.")
AND three fair summers did we twain
Live (as they say) and love together;
And bore by turns the wholesome cane
Till our young skins became as leather :
And carved our names on every desk,
And tore our clothes, and inked our collars; And looked unique and picturesque, But not, it may be, model scholars.
We did much as we chose to do;
We'd never heard of Mrs. Grundy;
All the theology we knew
Was that we mightn't play on Sunday; And all the general truths, that cakes. Were to be bought at four a penny, And that excruciating aches
Resulted if we ate too many :
And seeing ignorance is bliss,
And wisdom consequently folly,
The obvious result is this-
That our two lives were very jolly.
C. S. CALVERLEY. Verses and Translations. (Deighton, Cambridge.)
FALSE FRIENDSHIP.
ALAS, dear friends, we do each other wrong;
For we long years in love conjoined have been;
Many vicissitudes, and strange, have seen;
Joyed oft, wept oft, outgrown our grief ere long:
Yet what we were, still are we. Love is strong,
Through vigilant hate of all things base and mean,
To raise her votaries, and with fire make clean;
But we her awful aids away have flung.
Over complacent Friendship weakly doted
On virtues, oft through dim tears magnified,
Till Friendship, o'er-indulgent, scarcely noted
The faults hard-by; or, noting, feared to chide;
Therefore dishonoured Friendship asks too late,
"My seat inglorious must I abdicate ?"
AUBREY DE VERE.
Poems Meditative and Lyrical. (K. Paul.)
ALAS! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother :
They parted-ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between ;—
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Christabel.
NOT with the light and vain,
The man of idle feet and wanton eyes; Not with the world's gay, ever-smiling train; My lot be with the grave and wise.
Not with the trifler gay,
To whom life seems but sunshine on the wave; Not with the empty idler of the day;
My lot be with the wise and grave.
Not with the jesting fool,
Who knows not what to sober truth is due, Whose words fly out without or aim or rule; My lot be with the wise and true.
Not with the man of dreams,
In whose bright words no truth nor wisdom lies, Dazzling the fervent youth with mystic gleams; My lot be with the simply wise.
With them I'd walk each day;
From them time's solemn lessons would I learn, That false from true, and true from false, I may Each hour more patiently discern.
Hymns of Faith and Hope; First Series. (Nisbet.)
'Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep."-Rom. xii. 15.
WE bless Thee for the darkness, Lord,
That shows us worlds of light.
We bless Thee for life's griefs that bring
Life's virtues into sight.
We bless Thee for all human love ;-
The kindly deed and word,
The sympathy of faithful friends
Whose griefs by ours are stirred.
We bless Thee for love's gentle sighs
That tell us others feel
For stricken hearts, and fain would stanch
The wounds too fresh to heal.
We bless Thee for the loving hands.
That wipe our tears away, When, mourning earthly treasures gone We can but weep and pray.
We bless Thee for all brave kind words,
Though tremulously spoken,
As if the heart that uttered them
Itself were well-nigh broken.
We bless Thee for the tears that fall
For others' pain and loss :
Compared with these, the brightest gems
Are but as worthless dross.
We bless Thee for Thine own sweet smile;
Though clouds oft veil Thy face,
The very clouds, illumed by Thee,
Are ministers of grace.
Yes; but for darkness, none would see
The stars in heaven above;
And, but for griefs, there would not be
Life's star-lit heaven of love.
G. WASHINGTON MOON.
Poetical Leaflets. (Hatchards.)
NOR unremembered is the hour when friends
Met; friends, but few on earth, and therefore
dear:
Sought oft, and sought almost as oft in vain ;
Yet always sought; so native to the heart,
So much desired, and coveted by all.
Nor wonder thou-thou wonderest not, nor need'st!
Much beautiful, and excellent, and fair
Was seen beneath the sun; but nought was seen
More beautiful, or excellent, or fair,
Than face of faithful friend; fairest when seen
In darkest day; and many sounds were sweet,
Most ravishing, and pleasant to the ear;
But sweeter none than voice of faithful friend;
Sweet always, sweetest, heard in loudest storm.
Some I remember, and will ne'er forget;
My early friends, friends of my evil day;
Friends in my mirth, friends in my misery too;
Friends given by God in mercy and in love;
My counsellors, my comforters, and guides ;
My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy;
Companions of my young desires; in doubt,
My oracles; my wings in high pursuit.
ROBERT POLLOK.
The Course of Time; Book V.
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