AN EPISTLE TO CHARLES LAMB, ON HIS EMANCIPATION FROM CLERKSHIP. (WRITTEN OVEB A FLASK OF SHERRIS.) DEAR LAMB, I drink to thee-to thee What! old friend, and art thou freed The quill that traversed their white held? Thou hast earn'd thy sum of wealth- Is fill'd with talk on pleasant themes- Sometimes 'mid stately avenues With Cowley thou, or Marvel's muse, Or, dost thou, in some London street Loiter, with mien 'twixt grave and gay- Happy beyond that man of Ross, Whom mere content could ne'er engross, Art thou with hope, health, "learned leisure," Friends, books, thy thoughts-an endless pleasure! -Yet-yet-(for when was pleasure made Sunshine all without a shade?) Thou, perhaps, as now thou rovest Through the busy scenes thou lovest, With an Idler's careless look, Turning some moth-pierced book, Feel'st a sharp and sudden wo For visions vanished long ago! And then, thou think'st how time has fled Over thy unsilvered head, Snatching many a fellow mind Away, and leaving-what ?-behind! Naught, alas! save joy and pain Mingled ever, like a strain Of music where the discords vie So, perhaps, with thee the vein Aye: so't must be! E'en I (whose lot The fairy Love so long forgot), Seated beside this Sherris wine, And near to books, and shapes divine, FRIENDSHIP TILL DEATH. BY JOANNA BAILLIE. HAND in hand we have enjoyed The playful term of infancy together; And in the rougher path of ripened years We've been each other's stay. Dark lowers our fate, And terrible the storm that gathers o'er us; But nothing, till that latest agony Which severs thee from nature, shall unloose This fixed and sacred hold. In thy dark prison. house; In the terrific face of armed law; Yea, on the scaffold, if it needs must be, I never will forsake thee. WE HAVE BEEN FRIENDS TOGETHER. BY HON. MRS. NORTON. We have been friends together, In sunshine and in shade; Since first beneath the chesnut trees But coldness dwells within thy heart, We have been friends together- We have been gay together; We have laugh'd at little jests; Shall a light word part us now? We have been sad together, We have wept with bitter tears, O'er the grass-grown graves, where slumber'd The hopes of early years. The voices which are silent there Would bid thee clear thy brow; We have been sad together- |