Friendship.

THE FRIENDSHIP FLOWER.

BY MILNES.

When first the Friendship-flower is planted

Within the garden of your soul, Little of care or thought are wanted

To guard its beauty fresh and whole; But when the one empassion'd age

Has full reveal'd the magic bloom, A wise and holy tutelage

Alone can shun the open tomb.
It is not absence you should dread,

For absence is the very air
In which, if sound at root, the head

Shall wave most wonderful and fair ;
With sympathies of joy and sorrow

Fed, as with morn and even dews, Ideal colouring it may borrow

Richer than ever earthly hues.

But oft the plant, whose leaves unsere

Refresh the desert, hardly brooks

The common-peopled atmosphere

Of daily thoughts, and words, and looks;
It trembles at the brushing wings

Of many a careless fashion-fly,
And strange suspicions aim their stings

To taint it as they wanton by.
Rare is the heart to bear a flower,

That must not wholly fall and fade,
Where alien feelings, hour by hour,

Spring up, beset, and overshade ;
Better, a child of care and toil,

To glorify some needy spot,
Than in a glad redundant soil

To pine neglected and forgot.
Yet when, at last, by human slight,

Or close of their permitted day,
From the sweet world of life and light

Such find creations lapse away,
Bury the relics that retain

Sick odours of departed pride, Hoard as ye will your memory's gain,

But let them perish where they died.

Acquaintance I would have, but when t' depends Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

Cowley.

ON FRIENDSHIP.

BY COWPER.

What virtue, or what mental grace,
But men unqualified and base

Will boast it their possession?
Profusion apes the noble part
Of liberality of heart,

And dulness of discretion.

If every polished gem we find,
Illuminating heart or mind,

Provoke to imitation ;
No wonder friendship does the same
That jewel of the purest flame,

Or rather constellation.

No knave but boldly will pretend
The requisites that form a friend,

A real and a sound one;
Nor any fool, he would deceive,
Bul prove as ready to believe,

And dream that he had found one.

Candid, and generous, and just,
Boys care but little whom they trust,-

An error soon corrected,

For who but learns in riper years,
That man, when smoothest he appears,

Is most to be suspected ?
But here again a danger lies,
Lest, having misapplied our eyes,

And taken trash for treasure.
We should unwarily conclude
Friendship a false ideal good,

A mere Utopian pleasure.
An acquisition rather rare
Is yet no subject of despair ;

Nor is it wise complaining,
If either on forbidden ground,
Or where it was not to be found,

We sought without attaining.
No friendship will abide the test,
That stands on sordid interest,

Or mean self love erected ; Nor such as may awhile subsist Between the sot and sensualist,

For vicious ends connected. Who seeks a friend should come disposed. To exhibit in full bloom disclosed

The graces and the beauties, That form the character he seeks, For 'tis a union, that bespeaks

Reciprocated duties.