And, whether being crazed or blind,
Or seeking with a biassed mind,

Have not, it seems, discerned it.

O! Friendship, if my soul forego
Thy dear delights while here below;
To mortify and grieve me,

May I myself at last appear
Unworthy, base, and insincere,
Or may my friend deceive me!

THE KIND OLD FRIENDLY FEELINGS.

BY CHARLES SWAIN.

THE kind old friendly feelings!

We have their spirit yet,

Though years and years have passed, old friend, Since thou and I last met!

And something of gray Time's advance

Seems in thy fading eye,

Yet 'tis the same good honest glance

I loved in times gone by

Ere the kind old friendly feelings

Had ever brought one sigh! The warm old friendly feelings! Ah, who need yet be told

No other links can bind the heart

Like those loved links of old!

Thy hand I joyed in youth to clasp,
The touch of age may show,
Yet 'tis the same true hearty grasp
I loved so long ago-

Ere the last old friendly feelings

Had taught one tear to flow!
The kind old friendly feelings!
Oh, seem they e'er less dear,
Because some recollections
May meet us with a tear?

Though hopes we shared-the early beams
Ambition showed our way-

Have fled, dear friend, like morning dreams
Before 'Truth's searching ray-

Still we've kept the kind old feelings
That blessed our youthful day!

THE BLESSINGS OF FRIENDSHIP.

BY YOUNG.

KNOW'ST thou, Lorenzo! what a friend contains? As bees mixed nectar draw from fragrant flowers, So men from friendship wisdom and delight; Twins tied by nature, if they part they die. Hast thou no friend to set thy mind abroach?

Good sense will stagnate: thoughts shut up want air, And spoil, like bales unopened to the sun.

Had thought been all, sweet speech, had been denied ;

Speech, thought's canal! speech, thought's crite rion too!

Thought in the mine may come forth gold or dross;
When coined in words we know its real worth.
If sterling, store it for thy future use;
'T will buy the benefit! perhaps, renown.
Thought, too, delivered is the more possessed:
Teaching, we learn: and, giving, we retain
The births of intellect; when dumb, forgot.
Speech ventilates our intellectual fire:
Speech burnishes our mental magazine;
Brightens, for ornament; and whets, for use.
What numbers, sheathed in erudition, lie,
Plunged to the hilts in venerable tomes,
And rusted in; who might have borne an edge,
And played a sprightly beam, if born to speech;
If born blessed heirs of half their mother's tongue!
'Tis thought's exchange; which, like th' alternate

push

Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum, And defectates the student's standing pool.

In contemplation is his proud resource? 'Tis poor, as proud, by converse unsustained. Rude thought runs wild in contemplation's field: Converse, the manége, breaks it to the bit

Of due restraint; and emulation's spur

Gives graceful energy, by rivals awed.
'Tis converse qualifies for solitude;
As exercise, for salutary rest.

By that untutored, contemplation raves;
And nature's fool by wisdom's is outdone.
Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines,
And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive,
What is she, but the means of happiness?
That unobtained, than folly more a fool,
A melancholy fool, without her bells.
Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives
The precious end which makes our wisdom wise.
Nature, in zeal for human amity,

Denies or damps an undivided joy.

Joy is an important; joy is an exchange;

Joy flies monopolists: it calls for two;

Rich fruit! Heaven planted! never plucked by one.
Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give
To social man true felish of himself.
Full on ourselves, descending in a line,
Pleasure's bright beam is feeble in delight:
Delight intense is taken by rebound;
Reverberated pleasures fire the breast.

Celestial Happiness, whene'er she stoops
To visit earth, one shrine the goddess finds,
And one alone, to make her sweet amends
For absent heaven-the bosom of a friend;
Where heart meets heart, reciprocally soft,
Each other's pillow to repose divine.

Beware the counterfeit: in passion's flame

Hearts melt but melt like ice, soon harder froze. True love strikes root in reason; passion's foe: Virtue alone entenders us for life;

I wrong her much-entenders us for ever.

Of Friendship's fairest fruits, the fruit most fair Is virtue kindling at a rival fire,

And, emulously, rapid in her race.

O the soft enmity! endearing strife!
This carries friendship to her noontide point,
And gives the rivet of eternity.

PERFECT FRIENDSHIP.

BY DRYDEN.

I HAD a friend that loved me;

I was his soul; he lived not but in me;
We were so close within each other's breast,
The rivets were not found that joined us first,
That doth not reach us yet: we were so mixed,
As meeting streams: both to ourselves were lost.
We were one mass, we could not give or take,
But from the same; for he was I; I, he:
Return, my better half, and give me all myself,
For thou art all!

If I have any joy when thou art absent,
I grudge it to myself; methinks I rob
Thee of thy part.