Thy folly's past advice, Thy heart's already won, Thy fall's above all price, So go, and be undone; For all who thus prefer The seeming great for small Shall make wine vinegar, And sweetest honey gall. Would'st heed the truths I sing, To profit wherewithal, Clip folly's wanton wing, And keep her within call. I've little else to give, But thou canst easy try; The lesson how to live Is but to learn to die. MARCH [From HONE'S "Year Book"] The insect world, now sunbeams higher climb, Oft dream of Spring, and wake before their time: Bees stroke their little legs across their wings, And venture short flights where the snow-drop hings Its silver bell, and winter aconite Its buttercup-like flowers that shut at night, With green leaf furling round its cup of gold, Like tender maiden muffled from the cold: They sip and find their honey-dreams are vain, Then feebly hasten to their hives again. The butterflies, by eager hopes undone, Glad as a child come out to greet the sun, Beneath the shadows of a sunny shower Are lost, nor see to-morrow's April flower. THE OLD MAN'S LAMENT Youth has no fear of ill, by no cloudy days annoyed, But the old man's all hath fled, and his hopes have met their doom: The bud hath burst to flower, and the flower been long destroyed, The root also is withered; I no more can look for bloom. So I have said my say, and I have had my day, And sorrow, like a young storm, creeps dark upon my brow; Hopes, like to summer clouds, have all blown far away, And the world's sunny side is turned over with me now, And I am left a lame bird upon a withered bough. I look upon the past: 't is as black as winter days, But the worst is not yet over; there are blacker, days to come. O, I would I had but known of the wide world's many ways, But youth is ever blind, so I e'en must meet my doom. Joy once gave brightest forecasts of prospects that are past, But now, like a looking glass that's turned to the wall, Life is nothing but a blank, and the sunny shining past Is overcast in glooms that my every hope enthrall, While troubles daily thicken in the wind ere they fall. Life smiled upon me once, as the sun upon the rose; My heart, so free and open, guessed in every face a friend: Though the sweetest flower must fade, and the sweetest season close, Yet I never gave it thought that my happiness would end, Till the warmest-seeming friends grew the coldest at the close, As the sun from lonely night hides its haughty shining face, Yet I could not think them gone, for they turned not open foes, While memory fondly mused, former favours to retrace, So I turned, but only found that my shadow kept its place.