And here's to the friend, the one friend of my youth,
With a head full of genius, a heart full of truth,
Who travelled with me in the sunshine of life,
And stood by my side in its peace and its strife!
Would you know where to seek a blessing so rare?
Go drag the lone sea, you may find him there.
And here's to a brace of twin cherubs of mine,
With hearts like their mother's, as pure as this wine,
Who came but to see the first act of the play,
Grew tired of the scene, and then both went away.
Would you know where this brace of bright cherubs have hied? Go seek them in heaven, for there they abide.
A bumper, my boys! to a gray-headed pair,
Who watched o'er my childhood with tenderest care,
God bless them, and keep them, and may they look down,
On the head of their son, without tear, sigh, or frown!
Would you know whom I drink to? go seek mid the dead,
You will find both their names on the stone at their head..
And here's-but alas! the good wine is no more,
The bottle is emptied of all its bright store;
Like those we have toasted, its spirit is fled,
And nothing is left of the light that it shed.
Then, a bumper of tears, boys! the banquet here ends,
With a health to our dead, since we've no living friends.
Who built their kingdoms of an hour
On yet unburied bones,——
I would not have my land like thee,
So lofty-yet so cold!
Be hers a lowlier majesty,
In yet a nobler mould.
Thy marbles-works of wonder!
In thy victorious days,
Whose lips did seem to sunder
Before the astonished gaze;
When statue glared on statue there,
The living on the dead,—
And men as silent pilgrims were
Before some sainted head!
O, not for faultless marbles yet
Would I the light forego
That beams when other lights have set,
And Art herself lies low!
O, ours a holier hope shall be
Than consecrated bust,
Some loftier mean of memory
To snatch us from the dust.
And ours a sterner art than this,
Shall fix our image here,-
The spirit's mould of loveliness-
A nobler Belvidere !
Then let them bind with bloomless flowers
The busts and urns of old,—
A fairer heritage be ours,
A sacrifice less cold!
Give honor to the great and good,
And wreathe the living brow,
Kindling with Virtue's mantling blood,
And pay the tribute now!
So, when the good and great go down,
Their statues shall arise,
To crowd those temples of our own,
Our fadeless memories!
And when the sculptured marble falls,
And Art goes in to die,
"I am cast out-I find no place,
No hearing at the throne of grace:
'Come, Lord-oh, come!' I cry alway;
I pour my heart out night and day;
Yet never until now have won
The answer-Here am I, my son.'
-"Oh, dull of heart! enclosed doth lie,
In each Come, Lord,' a 'Here am I.'
Thy love, thy longing, are not thine,
Reflections of a love divine:
Thy very prayer to thee was given,
Itself a messenger from heaven.
Whom God rejects, they are not so;
Strong bands are round them in their woe;
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