-friend or foe!
Stand! stand!
I've a heart that melts at sorrow,
I've a store the poor may borrow
I'm the same to-day, to-morrow--
Take my hand!

AT PARTING.

Peace! Let me go, or ere it be too late;
Dip not your arrows in the honey-mead;
Paint not the wound through which my heart doth bleed;
Leave me unmock'd, unpitied to my fate--
Peace! Let me go.

Think you that words can smooth my rugged track?
Words heal the stab your soft white hands have made,
Or stir the burthen on my bosom laid?
Winds shook not Earth from Atlas' bended back--
Peace! Let me go.

What though it be the last time we shall meet--
Raise your white brow, and wreathe your raven hair,
And fill with music sweet the summer air;
Not this again shall draw me to your feet--
Peace! Let me go.

No laurels from my vanquish'd heart shall wave
Round your triumphant beauty as you go,
Not thus adorn'd work out some other's woe--
Yet, if you will, pluck daisies from my grave!
Peace! Let me go.

A WITHERED ROSE-BUD.

Time sets his footprints on our little Earth,
And, walk he ne'er so softly, some sweet thing
Falls 'neath each foot-fall, crush'd amid its mirth,
Tracking the course of Life's short wandering,
With fallen remnants of its mortal part,
Freeing the soul, but weighing down the heart.

Thou flower of Love! thou little treasury
Of gentleness, and purity, and grace!
What hidden virtue hath Death reft from thee--
What unseen essence melted into space?
For now thou liest like a sinless child,
Whom God hath homeward to his bosom smiled.

The dew-shower fell on thee, the sunbeam play'd,
As Life is ever made of smiles and tears;
And ofttimes has the breeze of summer sway'd,
And with its mellow music mock'd thy fears;
But now, O wonder, thou art pale and wan,
And there's a beauty and a fragrance gone!

Thus fade we--thus our hopes and joys, rose-bright,
Yield up their sweetness ere they reach their prime,
And their poor fabrics lie within our sight,
Stript of their radiance e'en in summer-time--
Their spirit hath gone from them, and they wither,
But wherefore hath the spirit gone, and whither?

Our knowledge is like dreams amid a sleep--
Faint-pinion'd thoughts that beat the vault of Night,
And flutter earthward--so we smile or weep
At what we know not, cannot see aright;
Life is death, and death