EARLY FRIENDSHIP.

THE half-seen memories of childish days, When pains and pleasures lightly came and went;

The sympathies of boyhood rashly spent In fearful wanderings through forbidden ways;

The vague, but manly wish to tread the maze Of life to noble ends; whereon intent, Asking to know for what man here is sent, The bravest heart must often pause, and gaze

The firm resolve to seek the chosen end

Of manhood's judgment, cautious and mature: Each of these viewless bonds binds friend to friend

With strength no selfish purpose can secure;
My happy lot is this, that all attend

shall last endure.

AUBREY DE VERE.

WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN.

WHEN shall we three meet again?
When shall we three meet again?
Oft shall glowing hope expire,
Oft shall wearied love retire
Oft shall death and sorrow reign,
Ere we three shall meet again.

Though in distant lands we sigh, Parched beneath a hostile sky;

And sable curls all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And Summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly
beard;

Then, of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves for-
sake,

And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe cun
make defence,

Save breed, to brave him, when he takes thee hence.

All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

THY bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
And there reigns love, and all love's loving
parts,

And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things removed, that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth
live,

Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
That due of many now is thine alone:

Their images I loved I view in thee,
And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.

FULL many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath masked him from me

now.

grace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my griefThough thou repent, yet I have still the loss: Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief To him that bears the strong offence's cross. Ah, but those tears are pearl, which thy love sheds,

And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.

WHAT is your substance, whereof are you made,

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;

On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year-
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear;
And you in every blessed shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part;
But you like none, none you, for constant
heart.

Оп, how much more doth beauty beauteous

seem,

By that sweet ornament which truth dotl, give!

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odor which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye

discloses ;

But, for their virtue only is their show; They live unwooed, and unrespected fade

A distant drearness in the hill, A secret sweetness in the stream, The limit of his narrower fate,

While yet beside its vocal springs He played at counsellors and kings, With one that was his earliest mate;

Who ploughs with pain his native lea,
And reaps the labor of his hands,
Or in the furrow musing stands:
Does my old friend remember me?"

WITCH-ELMS, that counterchange the floor
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright;
And thou, with all thy breadth and height
Of foliage, towering sycamore;

How often, hither wandering down,

My Arthur found your shadows fair,
And shook to all the liberal air
The dust and din and steam of town!

He brought an eye for all he saw,

He mixed in all our simple sports;
They pleased him, fresh from brawling

courts

And dusky purlieus of the law.

Oh joy to him, in this retreat,
Immantled in ambrosial dark,
To drink the cooler air, and mark
The landscape winking through the heat.

Oh sound to rout the brood of cares,
The sweep of scythe in morning dew,
The gust that round the garden flew,
And tumbling half the mellowing pears!

Oh bliss, when all in circle drawn

About him, heart and ear were fed,
To hear him, as he lay and read
The Tuscan poets on the lawn;
Or in the all-golden afternoon

A guest, or happy sister, sung,

Or here she brought the harp, and flung

A ballad to the brightening moon!

Nor less it pleased, in livelier moods,
Beyond the bounding hill to stray,
And break the livelong summer day
With banquet in the distant woods;

Whereat we glanced from theme to theme,
Discussed the books to love or hate,
Or touched the changes of the state,
Or threaded some Socratic dream.

But if I praised the busy town,

He loved to rail against it still, For "ground in yonder social mill, We rub each other's angles down,

"And merge," he said, "in form and gloss
The picturesque of man and man."
We talked; the stream beneath us ran,
The wine-flask lying couched in moss,

Or cooled within the glooming wave;
And last, returning from afar,
Before the crimson-circled star
Had fallen into her father's grave,

And brushing ankle deep in flowers,

We heard behind the wood bine veil The milk that bubbled in the pail, And buzzings of the honeyed hours.

THY Converse drew us with delight,

The men of rathe and riper years; The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, Forgot his weakness in thy sight.

On thee the loyal-hearted hung,

The proud was half disarmed of pride; Nor cared the serpent at thy side

To flicker with his treble tongue.

The stern were mild when thou wert by;
The flippant put himself to school
And heard thee; and the brazen fool
Was softened, and he knew not why;
While I, thy dearest sat apart,

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And felt thy triumph was as mine; And loved them more, that they were thine The graceful tact, the Christian art;

Not mine the sweetness or the skill,

But mine the love that will not tire, And, born of love, the vague desire That spurs an imitative will.