o dulces comitum valete coetus!
        CATULLUS.


No, never shall my soul forget
    The friends I found so cordial-hearted;
Dear shall be the day we met,
    And dear shall be the night we parted.

If fond regrets, however sweet,
    Must with the lapse of time decay,
Yet stall, when thus in mirth you meet,
    Fill high to him that's far away!

Long be the light of memory found
    Alive within your social glass;
Let that be still the magic round.
    O'er which Oblivion, dare not pass.

Made by Sir Philip Sidney, upon his meeting with his two worthy friends and fellow poets, Sir Edward Dyer and M. Fulke Greville.

Join mates in mirth to me,
Grant pleasure to our meeting;
Let Pan, our good god, see
How grateful is our greeting.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Ye hymns and singing skill
Of god Apollo's giving,
Be pressed our reeds to fill
With sound of music living.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

Sweet Orpheus' harp, whose sound
The stedfast mountains moved,
Let there thy skill abound,
To join sweet friends beloved.
Join hearts and hands, so let it be,
Make but one mind in bodies three.

My two and I be met,
A happy blessed...

I

You have heard "a Spanish Lady
How she wooed an English man;"
Hear now of a fair Armenian,
Daughter of the proud Soldan;
How she loved a Christian slave, and told her pain
By word, look, deed, with hope that he might love again.

II

"Pluck that rose, it moves my liking,"
Said she, lifting up her veil;
"Pluck it for me, gentle gardener,
Ere it wither and grow pale."
"Princess fair, I till the ground, but may not take
From twig or bed an humbler flower, even for your sake!"

III

"Grieved am I, submissive Christian!
To behold thy captive state;
Women, in your land, may pity
(May they not?) the unfortunate."
"Yes, kind Lady! otherwise man could not bear
Life, which to every one that breathes is full of care."
...

    Ther's sunshine an storm as we travel along,
Throo life's journey whear ivver we be;
An its wiser to leeten yor heart wi' a song,
Nor to freeat at wbat fate may decree;
Yo'll find gooid an bad amang th' fowk 'at yo meet,
An' form friendships maybe yo'll regret;
But tho' some may deceive an lay snares for yor feet,
Pass 'em by, - an' Forgive an' Forget.

When other friends are round thee,
And other hearts are thine--
When other bays have crowned thee,
More fresh and green than mine--
Then think how sad and lonely
This doating heart will be,
Which, while it beats, beats only,
Beloved one, for thee!

Yet do not think I doubt thee,
I know thy truth remains;
I would not live without thee,
For all the world contains.
Thou art the start that guides me
Along life's troubled sea;
And whatever fate betides me,
This heart still turns to thee.

Nature in charms is exhaustless, in beauty ever reviving;
And, like Nature, fair art is inexhaustible too.
Hail, thou honored old man! for both in thy heart thou preservest
Living sensations, and thus ne'er-ending youth is thy lot!

Miss Danae, when Fair and Young
(As Horace has divinely sung)
Could not be kept from Jove's Embrace
By Doors of Steel, and Walls of Brass.
The Reason of the Thing is clear;
Would Jove the naked Truth aver:
Cupid was with Him of the Party;
And show'd himself sincere and hearty:
For, give That Whipster but his Errand;
He takes my Lord Chief Justice' Warrant:
Dauntless as Death away He walks;
Breaks the Doors open; snaps the Locks;
Searches the Parlour, Chamber, Study;
Nor stops, 'till He has Culprit's Body.

Since This has been Authentick Truth,
By Age deliver'd down to Youth;
Tell us, mistaken Husband, tell us,
Why so Mysterious, why so Jealous?
Does the Restraint, the Bolt, the Bar
Make Us less Curious, Her less Fair?

The Spy, wh...

One day Ambition, in his endless round,
All filled with vague and nameless longings, found
Slow wasting Genius, who from spot to spot
Went idly grazing, through the Realms of Thought.

Ambition cried, 'Come, wander forth with me;
I like thy face -but cannot stay with thee.'
'I will,' said Genius, 'for I needs must own
I'm getting dull by being much alone.'

'Your hands are cold -come, warm them at my fire,'
Ambition said.    'Now, what is thy desire?'
Quoth Genius, ''Neath the sod of yonder heather
Lie gems untold.    Let's plough them out together.'

They bent like strong young oxen to the plough,
This done, Ambition questioned, 'Whither now?
We'll leave these gems for all the world to see!
New sports and pleasures wait for thee and me.'

...

Let's love one another, it's better bi far;
Mak peace wi yor Brother - it's better nor war!
Life's rooad's rough enuff, - let's mak it mooar smooth,
Let's sprinkle awr pathway wi kindness an love.
Ther's hearts at are heavy, and een at are dim,
Ther's deep cups o' sorrow at's full up to th' brim;
Ther's want an misfortun, - ther's crime an ther's sin;
Let's feight 'em wi Love, - for Love's sarten to win.

Give yor hand, - a kind hand, - to yor brother i' need,
Dooant question his conduct, or ax him his creed, -
Nor despise him becoss yo may think he's nooan reight,
For, maybe, some daat whether yo're walkin straight.
Dooant set up as judge, - it's a dangerous plan,
Luk ovver his failins, - he's nobbut a man;
Suppooas at he's one at yo'd call 'a hard case,'
Wha...

Felpham.

Hail Felpham! Hail! in youth my favorite scene!
First in my heart of villages marine!
To me thy waves confirm'd my truest wealth,
My only parent's renovated health,
Whose love maternal, and whose sweet discourse
Gave to my feelings all their cordial force:
Hence mindful, how her tender spirit blest
Thy salutary air, and balmy rest;
Thee, as profuse of recollections sweet,
Fit for a pensive veteran's calm retreat,
I chose, as provident for sure decay,
A nest for age in life's declining day!
Reserving Eartham for a darling son,
Confiding in our threads of life unspun:
Blind to futurity!--O blindness, given
As mercy's boon to man from pitying Heaven!
Man could not live, if his prophetic eyes
View'd all afflictions, ere they will arise.

Dear Madam,
Many thanks for your missive so charming in verse,
So kind and descriptive, so friendly and terse;
It came opportune on a cold stormy day,
And scattered ennui and "blue devils" away;
For though in the city, where "all's on the go,"
We often aver we feel only "so so,"
And sigh for a change - then here comes a letter!
What could I desire more welcome and better?
But how to reply? I'm lost in dismay,
I cannot in rhyme my feelings portray.
The nine they discard me, I'm not of their train,
They entreatingly beg, "I'll ne'er woo them again;"
But I'll brave their displeasure, and e'en write to you
A few lines of doggrel, then rhyming adieu.
My errors do "wink at," for hosts you'll descry,
And spare all rebuff, and the keen crit...

Bear and forbear, I counsel thee,
Forgive and be forgiven,
For Charity is the golden key
That opens the gate of heaven.

The Turn

Brave infant of Saguntum, clear
Thy coming forth in that great year,
When the prodigious Hannibal did crown
His rage, with razing your immortal town.
Thou looking then about
Ere thou wert half got out,
Wise child, didst hastily return,
And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
How summed a circle didst thou leave mankind
Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!


                            The Counter-Turn

Did wiser nature draw thee back
From out the horror of that sack,
Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,
Lay trampled on?—the deeds of death and night
Urged, hurried forth, and hurled
Upon th' affrighted world?
Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met,
And all on utmost ruin set:
As, could they...

Una donna più bella assai che 'l sole.

GLORY AND VIRTUE.


    A lady, lovelier, brighter than the sun,
Like him superior o'er all time and space,
Of rare resistless grace,
Me to her train in early life had won:
She, from that hour, in act, and word and thought,
--For still the world thus covets what is rare--
In many ways though brought
Before my search, was still the same coy fair:
For her alone my plans, from what they were,
Grew changed, since nearer subject to her eyes;
Her love alone could spur
My young ambition to each hard emprize:
So, if in long-wish'd port I e'er arrive,
I hope, for aye through her,
When others deem me dead, in honour to survive.

Full of first hope, burning with youthful love,
She, at her will, ...

Friend of mine! whose lot was cast
With me in the distant past;
Where, like shadows flitting fast,

Fact and fancy, thought and theme,
Word and work, begin to seem
Like a half-remembered dream!

Touched by change have all things been,
Yet I think of thee as when
We had speech of lip and pen.

For the calm thy kindness lent
To a path of discontent,
Rough with trial and dissent;

Gentle words where such were few,
Softening blame where blame was true,
Praising where small praise was due;

For a waking dream made good,
For an ideal understood,
For thy Christian womanhood;

For thy marvellous gift to cull
From our common life and dull
Whatsoe'er is beautiful;

Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees
Droppi...

Dear Joseph,--five and twenty years ago--
Alas, how time escapes!--'tis even so--
With frequent intercourse, and always sweet
And always friendly, we were wont to cheat
A tedious hour--and now we never meet.
As some grave gentleman in Terence says
('Twas therefore much the same in ancient days),
"Good lack, we know not what to-morrow brings--
Strange fluctuation of all human things!"
True. Changes will befall, and friends may part,
But distance only cannot change the heart:
And were I called to prove the assertion true,
One proof should serve--a reference to you.

Whence comes it, then, that in the wane of life,
Though nothing have occurred to kindle strife,
We find the friends we fancied we had won,
Though numerous once, reduced to few or none?
Can ...

On a mound an Arab lay,
And sung his sweet regrets
And told his amulets:
The summer bird
His sorrow heard,
And, when he heaved a sigh profound,
The sympathetic swallow swept the ground.

'If it be, as they said, she was not fair,
Beauty's not beautiful to me,
But sceptred genius, aye inorbed,
Culminating in her sphere.
This Hermione absorbed
The lustre of the land and ocean,
Hills and islands, cloud and tree,
In her form and motion.

'I ask no bauble miniature,
Nor ringlets dead
Shorn from her comely head,
Now that morning not disdains
Mountains and the misty plains
Her colossal portraiture;
They her heralds be,
Steeped in her quality,
And singers of her fame
Who is their Muse and dame.

'Higher, dear...

    And wouldst thou seek the low abode
        Where PEACE delights to dwell?
    Pause Traveller on thy way of life!
    With many a snare and peril rife
        Is that long labyrinth of road:
    Dark is the vale of years before
        Pause Traveller on thy way!
    Nor dare the dangerous path explore
Till old EXPERIENCE comes to lend his leading ray.

    Not he who comes with lanthorn light
    Shall guide thy groping pace aright
        With faltering feet and slow;
    No! let him rear the torch on high
    And every maze shall meet thine eye,
        And every snare and every foe;
    Then with steady step and strong,
    Traveller, shalt thou march along.

    Tho' POWER invite thee to her hall,
    Regard not thou her tempting ...