It trembles at the brushing wings
Of many' a careless fashion-fly,
And strange suspicions aim their stings
To taint it as they wanton by.

Rare is the heart to bear a flower,
That must not wholly fall and fade,
Where alien feelings, hour by hour,
Spring up, beset, and overshade;
Better, a child of care and toil,
To glorify some needy spot,
Than in a glad redundant soil
To pine neglected and forgot.

Yet when, at last, by human slight,
Or close of their permitted day,

From the bright world of life and light
Such fine creations lapse away,—

Bury the relics that retain

Sick odours of departed pride,—

Hoard, as ye will, your memory's gain, But leave the blossoms where they died.

FAIR-WEATHER FRIEND.

BECAUSE I mourned to see thee fall
From where I mounted thee,
Because I did not find thee all

I feigned a friend should be ;

Because things are not what they seem, And this our world is full of dream,

Because thou lovest sunny weather,
Am I to lose thee altogether?

I know harsh words have found their way,
Which I would fain recall

;

And angry passions had their day,
But now-forget them all;

Now that I only ask to share

Thy presence, like some pleasant air,
Now that my gravest thoughts will bend
To thy light mind, fair-weather friend!

See! I am careful to atone

My spirit's voice to thine;

My talk shall be of mirth alone,
Of music, flowers, and wine!

I will not breathe an earnest breath,

I will not think of life or death,

I will not dream of any end,

While thou art here, fair-weather friend!

Delusion brought me only woe,

I take thee as thou art;

Let thy gay verdure overgrow
My deep and serious heart!
Let me enjoy thy laugh, and sit
Within the radiance of thy wit,
And lean where'er thy humours tend,
Taking fair weather from my friend.

Or, if I see my doom is traced

By fortune's sterner pen,

And pain and sorrow must be faced,—
Well, thou canst leave me then;

1

And fear not lest some faint reproach Should on thy happy hours encroach; Nay, blessings on thy steps attend, Where'er they turn, fair-weather friend!

PAST FRIENDSHIP.

WE that were friends, yet are not now,
We that must daily meet

With ready words and courteous bow,
Acquaintance of the street;
We must not scorn the holy past,
We must remember still

To honour feelings that outlast
The reason and the will.

I might reprove thy broken faith,

I might recall the time

When thou wert chartered mine till death,

Through every fate and clime;

When every letter was a vow,

And fancy was not free

To dream of ended love; and thou
Wouldst say the same of me.

No, no, 'tis not for us to trim

The balance of our wrongs,
Enough to leave remorse to him
To whom remorse belongs!
Let our dead friendship be to us
A desecrated name,
Unutterable, mysterious,
A sorrow and a shame.

A sorrow that two souls which grew
Encased in mutual bliss,

Should wander, callous strangers, through

So cold a world as this!

A shame that we, whose hearts had earned
For life an early heaven,

Should be like angels self-returned
To Death, when once forgiven!

Let us remain as living signs,

Where they that run may read
Pain and disgrace in many lines
As of a loss indeed;

That of our fellows any who
The prize of love have won
May tremble at the thought to do
The thing that we have done!

NOT TO-MORROW!

O TERRIBLE To-morrow! that will come
On me, alone and far away from Her,
Who was my day, to-day, and every day :
To-morrow she will not be by my side,
And not to-morrow is as never more.

As the poor Soul, that images itself
Parted from God, its Father, and its Cause,
Finds in that very parting all its sin,

And in that very parting knows itself
Evil and reprobate, and will not hear
A single utterance of intrinsic hope :

So to my heart the world to-come is blank,
And not to-morrow is as never more.

I will not sound the possibilities:

I will not ask whether in some far time,
In some far order of the Universe,

In some far destination of myself,

We may not meet again? I only know

The burden of one thought that bears me down : And that to-morrow is as never more.

Ever and Never-foolish play of words-
Dancing before the finite mind of man :
Our Ever is a sweet successive dream

Of wavelets, over which the bounding heart
Goes forward 'mid the shoals and rocks of Time,

Until it crashes on the fronting shore:

Our Never is the Present without Hope,
And my next moment is as never more.

Let the serene Philosopher sit down,
Knowing that sorrow is the gift of God,
And bid the streams of consolation flow
Through the dim arid future: so have I
Striven in my time, and conquered in the end.
But how can it be good for me to lose
My better self, my moral sustenance,

One whom I followed in a heaven-ward path,
To which I now can see no other clue?
How can it make me better to be shorn
Of that within me that can claim to be
More than the crystal shining in the rock,
More than the blossom withering at my feet?
How can a man be wiser, if he lose