Have kissed, as if without design,

The babe which ought to have been mine,

And show'd, alas! in each caress

Time had not made me love the less.

BYRON.

OLD FRIENDS.

FULL many noble friends my soul hath known,
Women and men, who in my memory

Have sown such beauty as can never die;
And many times, when I seem all alone,
Within my heart I call up, one by one,

The joys I shared with them, the unlaced hours Of laughing thoughts, that came and went like flowers,

Or higher argument, Apollo's own:

Those listening eyes that gave nobility

To humblest verses writ and read for love,
Those burning words of high democracy,

Those doubts that through the vague abyss would

rove

And lean o'er chasms that took away the breath; When I forget them, may it be in death!

LOWELL.

THE COUCH BY FRIENDSHIP SPREAD.

How sweet the couch by friendship spread,
Though coarse its quilt, and hard its fold!
Where shall the wanderer find a bed,

Though heaped with down, and hung with gold, So dearly loved, so warm, so soft,

As that where he hath lain so oft?

Oh! when our frame with toil is tired,
Or travel-worn our wearied feet,
What then so much to be desired,
So cheering, soothing, and so sweet,
As our own ingle's fitful gleams,
And our own couch of rosy dreams?

When 'nighted on the mountain road,
While o'er the rugged rocks we climb,
Fancy portrays our own abode,

And nerves anew each fainting limb
To struggle with the dreary steep-
For dear is our own bed of sleep.

And, oh!" when on a distant coast,

Our steps are stay'd by dire disease, Who then, of those who watch the most,

Though kind, can have the power to please

Like those who watched disease's strife
At home, and soothed us back to life?

Where is the heart's soft silver chain Which binds to earth our spirits weak, Pardons the peevishness of pain,

Supplies the wants we cannot speak, And with well-tried and patient care Inspires our love and prompts our prayer.

Alas! though kind the stranger's eye,
And kind his heart as heart can be,
There is a want, we know not why,
A face beloved we cannot see-
A something round our aching head,
Unlike our own endearing bed.

When fired by fever's phantom chase
We fling aside the curtain's fold,
It shows a face-a pitying face-

But, ah! to us its cast seems cold,
And, with our last remains of pride!
We vainly strive our pain to hide.

But dear to us are those who wait

Around our couch with kindred pain

The long familiar friend or mate,

Whose softness woos us to complainWhose tear meets every tear that flows, Whose sympathy relieves our woes.

200

FORGOTTEN FEUDS.

Oh may I have in life and death,

A bed where I may lay me down; A home, a friend, whose every breath

May blend and mingle with my own— Whose heart with mine in joy may beat, Whose eye with mine in pain may meet !

And when at last the hour is come

Which bids my joy and sorrow cease; When my pale lips grow hushed and dumb, And my tired soul hath fled in peace, Then may some friend lay down my head Into its cold and narrow bed.

J. BETHUNE.

FORGOTTEN FEUDS.

SHEEP ON THE CHEVIOT HILLS.

GRAZE on, graze on, there comes no sound Of Border warfare here,

No slogan-cry of gathering clan,

No battle-axe or spear;

No belted knight in armour bright,

With glance of kindled ire,

Doth change the sports of Chevy Chace
To conflict fierce and dire,

Ye wist not that ye press the spot
Where Percy held his way
Across the marches, in his pride,

The "chiefest harts to slay;"

And where the stout Earl Douglas rode
Upon his milk-white steed,

With fifteen hundred Scottish spears,
To stay the invaders' deed.

Ye wist not that ye press the spot
Where, with his eagle eye,

King James, and all his gallant train,
To Flodden-field swept by.

The queen was weeping in her bower,
Amid her maids that day,

And on her cradled nursling's face
Those tears like pearl drops lay;

For madly 'gainst her native realm
Her royal husband went,
And led his flower of chivalry

As to a tournament;

He led them on in power and pride,

But, ere the fray was o'er,

They on the blood-stained heather slept,

And he returned no more.

Graze on, graze on, there's many a rill

Bright sparkling through the glade,