LINES TO MISS HINKSON.
FOR AN ALBUM.
My friend, mid the gentle, the chosen, the few,
The loved and the loving, the dear ones and true,
Whose names, traced before mine, pledge friendship and love,
Pure, ardent, and warm, from the fountain above;
Love, tender and truthful, with flowers interwrought,
Best offering of friendship, the bright flowers of thought;
Mid the verse of the poet, the scholars' array,
Thou hast left me a blank to fill up as I may.
The loved and the loving, the dear ones and true,
Whose names, traced before mine, pledge friendship and love,
Pure, ardent, and warm, from the fountain above;
Love, tender and truthful, with flowers interwrought,
Best offering of friendship, the bright flowers of thought;
Mid the verse of the poet, the scholars' array,
Thou hast left me a blank to fill up as I may.
Thou hast left it, for me to fill up as I may,
With the warm words of feeling, or dull words of clay;
Thou hast left me a leaf, to be filled with the thought,
The rose- thought of fancy, with dreaminess fraught.
Yet the soul, when it dreams of the warm, absent heart,
Will scarce in the dullness of earth take a part,
But up, soaring upward, through shadow and storm,
Find its home but in feelings impassioned and warm.
With the warm words of feeling, or dull words of clay;
Thou hast left me a leaf, to be filled with the thought,
The rose- thought of fancy, with dreaminess fraught.
Yet the soul, when it dreams of the warm, absent heart,
Will scarce in the dullness of earth take a part,
But up, soaring upward, through shadow and storm,
Find its home but in feelings impassioned and warm.
Heart answers heart-music; the deep prison-cell
Hath its inmates, for sorrows enough in it dwell;
Yet memory there hath its music, and hears
The loved tones of friends of its earlier years:
And freed from the dungeon, the fetter, the chain,
The prisoner lives in his childhood again;
And sees, as his fancies its glad days recall,
The sunshine of happiness resting on all.
Hath its inmates, for sorrows enough in it dwell;
Yet memory there hath its music, and hears
The loved tones of friends of its earlier years:
And freed from the dungeon, the fetter, the chain,
The prisoner lives in his childhood again;
And sees, as his fancies its glad days recall,
The sunshine of happiness resting on all.
So may'st thou, when parted by time and by space,
From the friends of thy youth, and thy dear native place,
To cheer thee, in sorrow and sadness and pain,
Find that heart ever answers heart-music again.
Let memory, loving the themes of the past,
Tell that friends who then loved thee will love to the last;
So that when thine eyes here on their offerings fall,
The warm smile of friendship may shine over all.
From the friends of thy youth, and thy dear native place,
To cheer thee, in sorrow and sadness and pain,
Find that heart ever answers heart-music again.
Let memory, loving the themes of the past,
Tell that friends who then loved thee will love to the last;
So that when thine eyes here on their offerings fall,
The warm smile of friendship may shine over all.
the end.