Then, then every rapture was young and sincere,
Ere the sunshine of bliss was bedimmed by a tear,
And a sweeter delight every scene seemed to lend,
That the mansion of peace was the home of a FRIEND.

Now the scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart, All pensive I visit, and sigh to depart;

Their flowers seem to languish, their beauty to cease, For a stranger inhabits the mansion of peace.

But hushed be the sigh that untimely complains, While Friendship and all its enchantment remains, While it blooms like the flower of a winterless clime, Untainted by chance, unabated by time.

THE CHERUBS.

SUGGESTED BY AN APOLOGUE IN THE WORKS OF
FRANKLIN.

Two spirits reached this world of ours:
The lightning's locomotive powers

Were slow to their agility:

In broad daylight they moved incog,
Enjoying, without mist or fog,
Entire invisibility.

The one, a simple cherub lad,
Much interest in our planet had,

Its face was so romantic;

He couldn't persuade himself that man
Was such as heavenly rumors ran,

A being base and frantic.

The elder spirit, wise and cool,

Brought down the youth as to a school;
But strictly on condition,
Whatever they should see or hear,
With mortals not to interfere;
'Twas not in their commission.

They reached a sovereign city proud,
Whose emperor prayed to God aloud,
With all his people kneeling,

And priests performed religious rites:
"Come," said the younger of the sprites,
"This shows a pious feeling."

YOUNG SPIRIT.

"Ar'n't these a decent godly race?"

OLD SPIRIT.

"The direst thieves on Nature's face."

YOUNG SPIRIT.

"But hark, what cheers they're giving Their emperor!

And is he a thief?"

OLD SPIRIT.

"Ay, and a cut-throat too;-in brief, THE GREATEST SCOUNDREL LIVING."

YOUNG SPIRIT.

"But say, what were they praying for, This people and their emperor?"

On wings outspeeding mail or post,
Our sprites o'ertook the Imperial host;
In massacres it wallowed:

A noble nation met its hordes,

But broken fell their cause and swords,
Unfortunate, though hallowed.

They saw a late bombarded town,

Its streets still warm with blood ran down;
Still smoked each burning rafter;
And hideously, 'midst rape and sack,
The murderer's laughter answered back
His prey's convulsive laughter.

They saw the captive eye the dead,
With envy of his gory bed, -

Death's quick reward of bravery:
They heard the clank of chains, and then
Saw thirty thousand bleeding men
Dragged manacled to slavery.

"Fie! fie!" the younger heavenly spark Exclaimed-"we must have missed our mark, And entered hell's own portals:

Earth can't be stained by crimes so black;
Nay, sure, we've got among a pack

Of fiends and not of mortals."

"No," said the elder; "no such thing: Fiends are not fools enough to wring The necks of one another:

They know their interests too well:
Men fight; but every devil in hell
Lives friendly with his brother.

"And I could point you out some fellows, On this ill-fated planet Tellus,

In royal power that revel,

Who, at the opening of the book

Of judgment, may have cause to look
With envy at the devil."

Name but the devil, and he'll appear,
Old Satan in a trice was near,

With smutty face and figure :
But spotless spirits of the skies,
Unseen to e'en his saucer eyes,
Could watch the fiendish nigger.

"Halloo!" he cried, "I smell a trick: A mortal supersedes Old Nick,

The scourge of earth appointed: He robs me of my trade, outrants The blasphemy of hell, and vaunts Himself the Lord's anointed.

"Folks make a fuss about my mischief:
D-d fools, they tamely suffer this chief
To play his pranks unbounded."
The cherubs flew; but saw from high,
At human inhumanity,

The devil himself astounded.

SENEX'S SOLILOQUY ON HIS YOUTHFUL IDOL.

PLATONIC friendship at your years,

Says Conscience, should content ye;
Nay, name not fondness to her ears,
The darling's scarcely twenty.

Yes, and she'll loathe me unforgiven,
To dote thus out of season;

But beauty is a beam from heaven,
That dazzles blind our reason.

I'll challenge Plato from the skies,
Yes, from his spheres harmonic,
To look in M-y C's eyes,
And try to be Platonic.

TO SIR FRANCIS BURDETT,

ON HIS SPEECH DELIVED IN PARLIAMENT, August 7, 1832, RESPECTING THE FOREIGN POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

BURDETT, enjoy thy justly foremost fame,

Through good and ill report through calm and

--

For forty years the pilot of reform !

But that which shall afresh entwine thy name

With patriot laurels never to be sere,

Is that thou hast come nobly forth to chide

Our slumbering statesmen for their lack of pride –

Their flattery of Oppressors, and their fear

When Britain's lifted finger, and her frown,

Might call the nations up, and cast their tyrants down!

Invoke the scorn - Alas! too few inherit

The scorn for despots cherished by our sires,

That baffled Europe's persecuting fires,