Ill-fated heart! and can it be That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain! Have years of care for thine and thee Alike been all employed in vain? 2. Yet precious seems each shatter'd part, Since he who wears thee, feels thou art A fitter emblem of his own. XIX. [This poem and the following were written some years ago.] To a Youthful Friend. 1. Few years have pass'd since thou and I Preserv'd our feelings long the same. 2. But now, like me, too well thou know'st What trifles oft the heart recall; And those who once have lov'd the most Too soon forget they lov'd at all. 3. And such the change the heart displays, To mourn the loss of such a heart; The fault was Nature's fault not thine, Which made thee fickle as thou art. 5. As rolls the ocean's changing tide, 6. It boots not, that together bred, My spring of life has quickly fled; Thou, too, hast ceas'd to be a boy. 7. And when we bid adieu to youth, Slaves to the specious world's controul, We sigh a long farewell to truth; That world corrupts the noblest soul, 8. Ah, joyous season! when the mind Dares all things boldly but to lie ; When thought ere spoke is unconfin'd, And sparkles in the placid eye. 9. Not so in Man's maturer years, When Man himself is but a tool, When interest sways our hopes and fears, And all must love and hate by rule. 10. With fools in kindred vice the same, The prostituted name of friend. 11. Such is the common lot of man: Can we then 'scape from folly free? Can we reverse the general plan, Nor be what all in turn must be? |