Young Love himself looks down from heaven,
To smile on such a day as this is !

Then, oh! my friends, this hour improve,
Let's feel as if we ne'er could sever!
And may the birth of her we love

Be thus with joy remembered ever!

Oh! banish every thought to-night,
Which could disturb our soul's communion;
Abandoned thus to dear delight,

We'll e'en for once forget the Union!
On that let statesmen try their powers,
And tremble o'er the rights they'd die for;
The union of the soul be ours,

And every union else we sigh for.

Then, oh my friends, this hour improve,
Let's feel as if we ne'er could sever;
And may the birth of her we love

Be thus with joy remembered ever!

In every eye around I mark

The feelings of the heart o'erflowing, From every soul I catch the spark

Of sympathy in friendship glowing! Oh! could such moments ever fly;

Oh! that we ne'er were doomed to lose 'eln, And all as bright as Charlotte's eye,

And all as pure as Charlotte's bosom.

But oh my friends, this hour improve,
Let's feel as if we ne'er could sever;
And may the birth of her we love

Be thus with joy remembered ever!
For me-whate'er my span of years,
Whatever sun may light my roving
Whether I waste my life in tears,

Or live, as now, for mirth and lovingThis day shall come with aspect kind,

Wherever Fate may cast your rover;
He'll think of those he left behind,

And drink a health to bliss that's over!
Then, oh my friends, this hour improve,
Let's feel as if we ne'er could sever;
And may the birth of her we love
Be thus with joy remembered ever!

And thought I wafted on my wing
Those flowers which in Elysium spring,
To crown my lovely mortal child.

With olive branch I bound thy head,
Heart's-ease along thy path I shed,

Which was to bloom through all thy years;
Nor yet did I forget to bind

Love's roses, with his myrtle twined,
And dewed by sympathetic tears.

Such was the wild but precious boon,
Which Fancy, at her magic noon,

Bade me to Nona's image pay--
Oh! were I, love, thus doomed to be
Thy little guardian deity,

How blest around thy steps I'd play!

Thy life should softly steal along,
Calm as some lonely shepherd's song
That's heard at distance in the grove;
No cloud should ever shade thy sky,
No thorns along thy pathway lie,

But all be sunshine, peace, and love!

The wing of Time should never brush
Thy dewy lip's luxuriant flush,

To bid its roses withering die;
Nor age itself, though dim and dark,
Should ever quench a single spark
That flashes from my Nona's eye!

MORALITY.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE.

ADDRESSED TO J. AT-NS-N, ESQ., M.R.I.A.

THOUGH long at school and college, dozing
On books of rhyme and books of prosing,
And copying from their moral pages
Fine recipes for forming sages;

Though long with those divines at school,
Who think to make us good by rule,
Who, in methodic forms advancing,
Teaching morality like dancing,

Tell us, for Heaven or money's sake,
What steps we are through life to take :
Though thus, my friend, so long employed,
And so much midnight oil destroyed,
I must confess, my searches past,
I only learned to doubt at last.

5

I find the doctors and the sages
Have differed in all climes and ages,
And two in fifty scarce agree
On what is pure morality!

'Tis like the rainbow's shifting zone,
And every vision makes its own.

The doctors of the Porch advise,
As modes of being great and wise,
That we should cease to own or know
The luxuries that from feeling flow.

'Reason alone must claim direction,
And Apathy's the soul's perfection.
Like a dull lake the heart must lie;
Nor passion's gale nor pleasure's sigh,
Though heaven the breeze, the breath supplied,
Must curl the wave or swell the tide !'

Such was the rigid Zeno's plan
To form his philosophic man;

Such were the modes he taught mankind

To weed the garden of the mind;

They tore away some weeds, 'tis true,

But all the flowers were ravished too!

Now listen to the wily strains,
Which, on Cyrené's sandy plains,

When Pleasure, nymph with loosened zone,
Usurped the philosophic throne ;
Hear what the courtly sage's tongue1
To his surrounding pupils sung:

'Pleasure's the only noble end

To which all human powers should tend,
And Virtue gives her heavenly lore,
But to make Pleasure please us more!
Wisdom and she were both designed
To make the senses more refined,
That man might revel, free from cloying,
Then most a sage, when most enjoying!'

Is this morality?—Oh, no!

E'en I a wiser path could show.

The flower within this vase confined,
The pure, the unfading flower of mind,
Must not throw all its sweets away
Upon a mortal mould of clay;

No, no! its richest breath should rise
In virtue's incense to the skies!

Aristippus of Cyrene. He flourished 400 years before Christ.

But thus it is, all sects, we see,
Have watchwords of morality:
Some cry out Venus, others Jove;
Here 'tis religion, there 'tis love!

But while they thus so widely wander,

While mystics dream, and doctors ponder
And some, in dialectics firm,

Seek virtue in a middle term;

While thus they strive, in Heaven's defiance,
To chain morality with science;

The plain good man, whose actions teach
More virtue than a sect can preach,
Pursues his course, unsagely blest,
His tutor whispering in his breast:
Nor could he act a purer part,
Though he had Tully all by heart;
And when he drops the tear on woe,
He little knows or cares to know
That Epictetus blamed that tear,
By Heaven approved, to virtue dear!

Oh! when I've seen the morning beam
Floating within the dimpled stream,
While Nature, wakening from the night,
Has just put on her robes of light,
Have I, with cold optician's gaze,
Explored the doctrine of those rays?
No, pedants, I have left to you
Nicely to separate hue from hue:
Go, give that moment up to art,

When Heaven and Nature claim the heart;
And dull to all their best attraction,
Go-measure angles of refraction!
While I, in feeling's sweet romance,
Look on each day-beam as a glance
From the great eye of Him above,
Wakening his world with looks of love!

SONG.

WHY does azure deck the sky?
'Tis to be like thy looks of blue;

Why is red the rose's dye?

Because it is thy blushes' hue. All that's fair, by Love's decree, Has been made resembling thee !

Why is falling snow so white,

But to be like thy bosom fair? Why are solar beams so bright?

That they may seem thy golden hair!

HAVE not you seen the timid tear
Steal trembling from mine eye?
Have you not marked the flush of fear,
Or caught the murmured sigh?

And can you think my love is chill,
Nor fixed on you alone?

And can you rend, by doubting still,
A heart so much your own?

To you my soul's affections move
Devoutly, warmly true;
My life has been a task of love,
One long, long thought of you.
If all your tender faith is o'er,
If still my truth you'll try;
Alas! I know but one proof more,-
I'll bless your name, and die '