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FRIENDSHIP.

289

FRIENDSHIP.

Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent.

Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,

SHAKSPEARE.

If thou but think'st him wrong'd, and mak'st his ear
A stranger to thy thoughts.

A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

Who shall compare love's mean and gross desire
'To the chaste zeal of friendship's sacred fire?
Love is a sudden blaze which soon decays
Friendship is like the sun's eternal rays;
Not daily benefits exhaust the flame,
It still is giving, and still burns the same.

The joys of friendship,

GAY'S Drone.

The trust, security, and mutual tenderness,
The double joys, when both are glad for both;
Our only wealth, our last retreat and strength,
Secure against all fortune and the world.

Friendship above all ties does bind the heart,
And faith in friendship is the noblest part.

RowL.

LORD ORRERY.

First on thy friend deliberate with thyself;
Pause, ponder, sift; not eager in the choice,
Nor jealous of the chosen: fixing, fix ;—
Judge before friendship, then confide till death.

YOUNG'S Night Thoughts

200

FRIENDSHIP.

Hope not to find

A friend, but what has found a friend in thee;
All like the purchase, few the price will pay;
And this makes friends such miracles below.

YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.

The friendships of the world are oft
Confed'racies in vice, or leagues in pleasure.

ADDISON'S Cato

Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society,
I owe thee much! thou hast deserv'd of me
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay.

And what is friendship but a name,
A charm that lulls to sleep?-

A sound that follows wealth and fame,
But leaves the wretch to weep.

BLAIR'S Grave.

GOLDSMITH'S Hermit.

Friendship is not a plant of hasty growth;
Though planted in esteem's deep fixed soil,
The gradual culture of kind intercourse
Must bring it to perfection.

Thou art the friend,

JOANNA BAILLIE

To whom the shadows of long years extend.

BYRON'S Childe Harold

Though human, thou didst not deceive me,

Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though lov'd, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me,
Nor mute, that the world might belie.

BYRON

FRIENDSHIP.

He, who, malignant, tears an absent friend,
Or, when attack'd by others, don't defend,
Who friendship's secrets knows not to conceal—
That man is vile.

291

FRANCIS' Horace.

A generous friendship no cold medium knows,
Burns with one warmth, with one resentment glows;
One must our union, our resentment be,

My friend must hate the man who injures me.

How much to be priz'd and esteem'd is a friend,
On whom we can always with safety depend!
Our joys, when extended, will always increase,
And griefs, when divided, are hush'd into peace.

MRS. MARGARET SMITH

Oh, friendship! thou balm and sweet'ner of life!
Kind parent of ease, and composer of strife!
Without thee, alas! what are riches and power,
But empty delusions, the joy of an hour?

When our lives

MRS. MARGARET SMITH

Were link'd in one, and our young hearts bloom'd out,
Like violet bells upon the self-same stem,

Pouring the dewy odours of life's spring
Into each other's bosoms.

Friends my soul with joy remembers!
How like quivering flames they start,
When I fan the living embers

On the hearthstone of my heart!

B. B. THATCHER.

H. W. LONGFELLOW

Yes, the summer of life passes quickly away,

Soon the winter of age sheds its snow on the heart, But the warm sun of Friendship, that gilded youth's day, Shall still thro' the dark clouds a soft ray impart.

A GIBBS.

292

FRUITS-FUNERAL, &c.

Sweet lady, wilt thou think of me

When Friendship's flowers are round thee wreathing.
And Love's delirious flattery

Within thy ear is softly breathing?
O, let my friendship, in the wreath,
Though but a bud among the flowers,
Its sweetest fragrance round thee breathe-
"T will serve to soothe thy weary hours.

MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY.

In after years, when thou, perchance,
As thoughts of Auld Lang Syne arise,
'Midst other scenes shalt cast a glance
Along these pages, should thine eyes

Rest on this tribute-think of me-
Think kindly, as I shall of thee.

FRUITS.- (See FLOWERS.)

J. T. WATSON

FUNERAL-MOURNING

Do not for ever, with thy veiled lids,

Seek for thy noble father in the dust;

WIDOW.

Thou know'st 't is common; all that live, must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

SHAKSPEARE.

Why is the hearse with 'scutcheous blazon'd round,
And with the nodding plumes of ostrich crown'd?
No: the dead know it not, nor profit gain;

It only serves to prove the living vain.

GAY'S Trivia.

BARON.

They truly mourn, that mourn without a witness.

FUNERAL-MOURNING - WIDOW.

Of all

293

The fools, who flock'd to swell or see the show,
Who cared about the corpse? The funeral
Made the attraction, and the black the woe.

BYRON'S Vision of Judgment.

Groans and convulsions, and discolour'd faces,
Friends weeping round us, blacks, and obsequies,
Make death a dreadful thing; the pomp of death
Is far more terrible than death itself.

Prone on the lonely grave of the dear man
She drops; whilst busy meddling memory,
In barbarous succession, musters up

The past endearments of their softer hours,
Tenacious of the theme.

NAT. LEE.

BLAIR'S Grave.

Thus, day by day, and month by month, we pass'd;
It pleas'd the Lord to take my spouse at last.

I tore my gown, I soil'd my locks with dust,
And beat my breasts-as wretched widows must.
Before my face my handkerchief I spread,

To hide the flood of tears I did not shed.

POPE,

What though no friends in sable weeds appear,

Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year?

And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances, and the public show!

POFE

Death's seneschal! 't is thine to trace

For each his proper look and place;

How aunts should weep, where uncles stand.

With hostile cousins, hand in hand;

Give matchless gloves, and fitly shape

By length of face the length of crape.

HON. N. BIDDLE's Ode to Bogle.

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