What thoughts, and hopes, and holy prayers, can others cause like these? If ye count society for pastime, - what happier recreation than a nursling? Its winning ways, its prattling tongue, its innocence and mirth? If ye count society for good, -how fair a field is here, To guide these souls to God, and multiply thyself for heaven! AND this sweet, social commerce with thy children groweth as their growth, Unless thou fail of duty, or have weaned them by thine absence. Keep them near thee, rear them well, guide, correct, instruct them; And be the playmate of their games, the judge in their complainings. So shall the maiden and the youth love thee as their sympathizing friend, And bring their joys to share with thee, their sorrows for consoling: They will not hide their very loves if thou hast won their trust; No secret shall be kept from thee; for if ill, thy wisdom may repair it; If well, thy praise is precious; and they would not miss that prize. And finding there the last to blame, the earliest to commend. ALAS! and bitter is their loss, the parents and the children, Who, loving up and down the world, have missed each other's friendship. Haply, it had grown of careless life, for years go swiftly by; cunning; And so those hardened men were foes, that should have been chief friends. Where was the cause, the mutual cause? O, hunt it out to kill it: Caution, care, and dry distrust, obscured each other's mind, For better friends can no man have, than those whom God hath given, And he that hath despised the gift, thought ill of that he knew not. Be ye wiser, (I speak unto the sons) and win paternal friend ships, Cultivate their kindness, seek them out with honor, and be the screening Japheth to their failings : And be ye wiser, -(I speak unto the fathers,)—gain those filial comrades, Cherish their reasonable converse, and look not with coldness on your children. For the friendship of a child is the brightest gem set upon the circlet of Society, a jewel seldom seen. A jewel worth a world of pains, -a THE third cycle on the waters, another of those rings upon the onyx, A further definite broad zone, holdeth kith and kin: A motley band of many tribes, and under various banners; The intimate and strangers, the known and loved, or only seen for loathing: Some, dear for their deserts, shall honor and have honor of rela tionship, Some, despising duties, will add to it both burden and disgrace. A man's nearest kin are oftentimes far other than his dearest, For, note thou this, the providence of God hath bound up families together, To mutual aid and patient trial; yea, those ties are strong, thy need, For these are God's appointed way, and those the choice of man: For friends come and go, the whim that bound may loose them, WIDE, and edged with shadowy bounds, a distant boulevard to the city, The common crowd of social life is buzzing round about: Ranged around a man's own fortress, and his father's house. ence, He found himself alone, and came to talk, till they that hear are tired; Let the man bethink him of an errand, that his face be not unwel come. BUT many friends there be, both well and wisely greeted; Gladly are they hailed upon the hills, and are chidden that they come so seldom. Of such are the early recollections, school friendships that have thriven to gray hairs, And veteran men are young once more, and talk of boyish pranks ; MANY thoughts, many thoughts, - who can catch them all? The best are ever swiftest-winged, the duller lag behind: For behold in these vast themes, my mind is as a forest of the West, And flocking pigeons come in clouds, and bend the groaning branches; Here for a rest, then off and away, - they have sped to other climes, And leave me to my peace once more, a holiday from thoughts. pitfall, Harmful copings with the better, and empty-headed apings of the worse, Circumstance and custom, sympathies, antipathies, diverse kinds of conversation, Vapid pleasures, the weariness of gayety, the strife and bustle of the world, Home comforts, the miseries of style, the cobweb lines of etiquette, The hollowness of courtesies, and substance of deceits, -idleness, business, and pastime,· The multitude of matters to be done, the when, and where, and how, - And varying shades of characters, to do, undo, or miss them, - Many wise have gone before, and used the sickle well; Who can find a corner now, where none have bound the sheaves? So other some may reap: I do but glean and gather: My sorry handful hath been culled after the ripe harvest of Society. OF SOLITUDE. WHO hath known his brother, or found him in his freedom unrestrained? Even he whose hidden glance hath watched his deepest Solitude. I speak not of the hypocrite, nor dream of meant deceptions, Yea, let a dog be watching thee, its eye will tend to thy restraint. thee; It is not as a natural result, but rather the educated produce. And throw it off its equipoise of peace, to balance by an effort. The consciousness that some are hearing, cometh as a care, But merchant-minds have crushed the first, and cannot feel the latter: Whereas to the quickened apprehension of a keen and spiritual in tellect, Antipathies are galling, and sympathies oppress, and solitude is quiet. |