"Young Oak, when I planted thee deep in the ground, I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine; That thy dark-waving branches would flourish around, And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine. "Such, such was my hope, when, in infancy's years, On the land of my fathers I rear'd thee with pride; They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears,-- Thy decay, not the weeds that surround thee can hide. "I left thee, my Oak, and, since that fatal hour, A stranger has dwelt in the hall of my sire," &c. &c. The subject of the verses that follow is sufficiently explained by the notice which he has prefixed to them; and, as illustrative of the romantic and almost lovelike feeling which he threw into his school friendships, they appeared to me, though rather quaint and elaborate, to be worth preserving. "Some years ago, when at H----, a friend of the author engraved on a particular spot the names of both, with a few additional words as a memorial. Afterwards, on receiving some real or imagined injury, the author destroyed the frail record before he left H----. On revisiting the place in 1807, he wrote under it the following stanzas:-- "Here once engaged the stranger's view Young Friendship's record simply traced; Few were her words,--but yet though few, Resentment's hand the line defaced. "Deeply she cut--but, not erased, The characters were still so plain, That Friendship once return'd, and gazed,-- Till Memory hail'd the words again. "Repentance placed them as before; Forgiveness join'd her gentle name; So fair the inscription seem'd once more That Friendship thought it still the same. "Thus might the record now have been; But, ah, in spite of Hope's endeavour, Or Friendship's tears, Pride rush'd between, And blotted out the line for ever!" The same romantic feeling of friendship breathes throughout another of these poems, in which he has taken for the subject the ingenious thought "L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes," and concludes every stanza with the words, "Friendship is Love without his wings." Of the nine stanzas of which this poem consists, the three following appear the most worthy of selection:-- "Why should my anxious breast repine, Because my youth is fled? Days of delight may still be mine, Affection is _not_ dead. In tracing back the years of youth, One firm record, one lasting truth Celestial consolation brings; Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat, Where first my heart responsive beat,-- 'Friendship is Love without his wings!'