Ah me! you take the bud that came Self-sown in your poor garden's borders, And hand it to the stately dame That florists breed for, all she orders. She thanks you,--it was kindly meant,-- (A pale afair, not worth the keeping,)-- Good morning; and your bud is sent To join the tea-leaves used for sweeping. Not always so, kind hearts and true,-- For such I know are round me beating; Is not the bud I offer you, Fresh gathered for the hour of meeting, Pale though its outer leaves may be, Rose-red in all its inner petals?-- Where the warm life we cannot see-- The life of love that gave it--settles. We meet from regions far away, Like rills from distant mountains streaming; The sun is on Francisco's bay, O'er Chesapeake the lighthouse gleaming; While summer girds the still bayou In chains of bloom, her bridal token, Monadnock sees the sky grow blue, His crystal bracelet yet unbroken. Yet Nature bears the selfsame heart Beneath her russet-mantled bosom As where, with burning lips apart, She breathes and white magnolias blossom; The selfsame founts her chalice fill With showery sunlight running over, On fiery plain and frozen hill, On myrtle-beds and fields of clover. I give you Home! its crossing lines United in one golden suture, And showing every day that shines The present growing to the future,-- A flag that bears a hundred stars In one bright ring, with love for centre, Fenced round with white and crimson bars No prowling treason dares to enter! O brothers, home may be a word To make affection's living treasure, The wave an angel might have stirred, A stagnant pool of selfish pleasure; HOME! It is where the day-star springs And where the evening sun reposes, Where'er the eagle spreads his wings, From northern pines to southern roses! A SENTIMENT A TRIPLE health to Friendship, Science, Art, From heads and hands that own a common heart! Each in its turn the others' willing slave, Each in its season strong to heal and save. Friendship's blind service, in the hour of need, Wipes the pale face, and lets the victim bleed. Science must stop to reason and explain; ART claps his finger on the streaming vein. But Art's brief memory fails the hand at last; Then SCIENCE lifts the flambeau of the past. When both their equal impotence deplore, When Learning sighs, and Skill can do no more, The tear of FRIENDSHIP pours its heavenly balm, And soothes the pang no anodyne may calm May 1, 1855. RIP VAN WINKLE, M. D. AN AFTER-DINNER PRESCRIPTION TAKEN BY THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, AT THEIR MEETING HELD MAY 25, 1870 CANTO FIRST OLD Rip Van Winkle had a grandson, Rip, Of the paternal block a genuine chip,-- A lazy, sleepy, curious kind of chap; He, like his grandsire, took a mighty nap, Whereof the story I propose to tell In two brief cantos, if you listen well.