STANZAS, Written on a very amiable and ingenious young Man's being censured in Company as wanting common Sense. WHAT means this common sense the worldling's boast, Is it the sleepy wisdom of the schools, Is it to check each soft emotion's rise; If this be common sense; Oh, grant me heav'n, Be mine to ramble still in Fancy's maze, On Life's bright prospects chearfully to gaze, FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE, A SCHOOL EXERCISE. BY WILLIAM PRESTON, ESQ. YES-take my heart, and let it prove For Friendship is a gen'rous balm, To still the pangs, the cares to calm, But Love, a draught of noxious pow'r. Whoe'er the potion drinks, Infuriate wastes the madden'd hour, Thou, Friendship, art a constant stream, Translucent pure that flows, Where kind and temp'rate wishes beam, And rising virtue grows. Thy wishes, Love, like torrents burst, Come, Friendship, come; thy radiance lend, A thousand woes my bosom rend; Hail, holy Friendship, mark divine Thy rays but faint, and dimly shine, With Love their gentle natures flame, But never quit the selfish aim, Or vanquish jealous fear." The female breast caprices guide, And light resentment warms, The thirst of sway, the little pride, The rivalship of charms. All female nature is but Art, And soft refin'd Disguise; But Friendship reads the secret heart, The nascent thought descries. 'Tis Friendship on th' expanded hearts Can lasting joy bestow: A transient pleasure Love imparts, And permanent its woe. Awake, alive, unbounded trust, Nor light Caprice, nor mean Disgust, Etherial Ardour, spark divine, It bids the eyes of angels shine, Thou, Friendship, art a pledge and proof, While Pride detains the Great aloof, Thou com'st to pour thy lambent light Love is enamour'd of the bloom, It flies from Age, from Sorrow's gloom, Amid all these will Friendship live, And here delights to shine; To her we sacrifices give, Because she is divine. 'Mong rugged rocks, that Being fill, But Love is all for sensual joys, "Tis like the feather tost; 'Tis won by baubles, and by toys, For toys and baubles lost. In ev'ry place, in ev'ry age, The love of kind prevails : Alike the Driv'ler, and the Sage, The gentle rage assails. Nay, with the brutes, and reptile kind, Its pleasures Love divides; But Friendship, center'd in the mind, The diamond, falsely understood, And vanishes in air. An opal, fix'd, thro' chance and years, The fiercest flame of trial bears, Still unassuming, still the same, A thousand, and a thousand names Of lovers are enroll'd: Their story lives, we read their flames, In modern Bards, and old. |