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A REMINISCENCE OF EARLY

FRIENDSHIP.

BY BLAIR.

FRIENDSHIP! mysterious cement of the soul;
Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society,

I owe thee much. Thou hast deserved from me,
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay.

Oft have I proved the labours of thy love,
And the warm efforts of thy gentle heart,
Anxious to please. Oh! when my friend and I
In some thick wood have wandered heedless on.
Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down
Upon the sloping cowslip-covered bank,
Where the pure limpid stream has slid along
In grateful errors through the underwood
Sweet murmuring: methought the shrill-tongued
thrush

Mended his song of love; the sooty blackbird
Mellowed his pipe, and softened every note:
The eglantine smelled sweeter, and the rose
Assumed a dye more deep; whilst every flower
Vied with its fellow plant in luxury

Of dress. Oh! then the longest summer's day Seemed too, too much in haste! still the full heart Had not imparted half; 'twas happiness

Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed,

Not to return, how painful the remembrance!

THE DYING GIAOUR.

BY BYRON.

IN earlier days, and calmer hours,
When heart with heart delights to blend,
Where bloom my native valley's bowers
I had-Ah! have I now ?-a friend!
To him this ring I charge thee send,
Memorial of a youthful vow;

I would remind him of mine end:

Though souls absorbed like mine allow Brief thought to distant friendship's claim Yet dear to him my blighted name. 'Tis strange-he prophesied my doom,

And I have smiled-I then could smileWhen Prudence would his voice assume, And warn-I recked not what-the while And now remembrance whispers o'er Those accents scarcely marked before. Say-that his bodings came to pass,

And he will start to hear their truth, And wish his words had not been sooth: Tell him, unheeding as I was,

Through many a bitter scene

Of all our golden youth had been, In pain, my faltering tongue had tried

To bless his memory ere I died;

But Heaven in wrath would turn away,
If Guilt should for the guiltless pray.
I do not ask him not to blame,
Too gentle he to wound my name;
And what have I to do with fame?
I do not ask him not to mourn,

Such cold request might sound like scorn;
And what than friendship's manly tear
May better grace a brothers bier ?
And bear this ring, his own of old,
And tell him-what thou dost behold!
The withered frame, the ruined mind,
The wrack by passion left behind,
A shrivelled scroll, a scattered leaf,
Seared by the Autumn blast of grief!

I did send

To you for gold to pay my legions,

Which you deny'd me: Was that done like
Cassius?

Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces!

Shakespeare.

TO MRS. AGNES BAILLIE.

BY JOANNA BAILLIE.

DEAR Agnes, gleamed with joy and dashed with

tears

O'er us have glided almost fifty years,

Since we on Bothwell's bonny braes were seen, By those whose eyes long closed in death have

been,

Two tiny imps, who scarcely stooped to gather
The slender hare-bell or the purple heather;
No taller than the fox-gloves spiky stem,
That dew of morning studs with silvery gem.
Then every butterfly that crossed our view
With joyful shout was greeted as it flew,
And moth and lady-bird and beetle bright
In sheeny gold were each a wondrous sight.
Then as we paddled barefoot, side by side,
Among the sunny shallows of the Clyde,
Minnows or spotted par with twinkling fin,
Swimming in mazy rings the pool within,
A thrill of gladness through our bosoms sent
Seen in the power of early wonderment.

A long perspective in my mind appears,
Looking behind me to that line of years,
And yet through every stage I still can trace

The visioned form, from childhood's morning

grace

To woman's early bloom, changing how soon!
To the expressive glow of woman's noon;
And now to what thou art, in comely age,
Active and ardent. Let what will engage
Thy present moment, whether hopeful seeds
In garden-plat thou sow, or noxious weeds
From the fair flower remove, or ancient lore,
In chronicle or legend rare explore,
Or on the parlour hearth with kitten play,
Stroking its tabby sides, or take thy way
To gain with hasty steps some cottage door,
On helpful errand to the neighbouring poor
Active and ardent-to my fancy's eye

Thou still art young in spite of time gone by
Though oft of patience brief and temper keer.
Well may it please me in life's latter scene,

To think what now thou art and long to me hast been.

'Twas thou who woo'd'st me first to look Upon the page of printed book,

That thing by me abhorr'd, and with address
Didst win me from my thoughtless idleness,
When all too old become with bootless haste
In fitful sports the precious time to waste.
Thy love of tale and story was the stroke
At which my dormant fancy first awoke,
And ghosts and witches in my busy brain
Arose in sombre show, a motley train.
This new-found path attempting, proud was I,
Lurking approval on thy face to spy,
P

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