1   Friend of my youth! when young we roved,   Like striplings mutually beloved,      With friendship’s purest glow,   The bliss which wing’d those rosy hours   Was such as pleasure seldom showers      On mortals here below. 2   The recollection seems alone   Dearer than all the joys I’ve known,      When distant far from you:   Though pain, ’tis still a pleasing pain,   To trace those days and hours again,      And sigh again, adieu! 3   My pensive memory lingers o’er   Those scenes to be enjoy’d no more,      Those scenes regretted ever   The measure of our youth is full,   Life’s evening dream is dark and dull,      And we may meet—ah! never! 4   As when one parent spring supplies   Two streams which from one fountain rise      Together join’d in ’vain;   How soon’ diverging from their source,   Each murmuring, seeks another course,      Till mingled in the main! 5   Our vital streams of weal or woe,   Though near, alas! distinctly flow,      Nor mingle as before:   Now swift or slow, now black or clear,   Till death’s unfathom’d gulf appear,      And both shall quit the shore. 6   Our souls, my friend! which once supplied   One wish, nor breathed a thought beside,      Now flow in different channels:   Disdaining humbler rural sports,   ’Tis yours to mix in polish’d courts,      And shine in fashion’s annals; 7   ’Tis mine to waste on love my time,   Or vent my reveries in rhyme,      Without the aid of reason;   For sense and reason (critics know it)   Have quitted every amorous poet,      Nor left a thought to seize on. 8   Poor LITTLE! sweet, melodious bard!   Of late esteem’d it monstrous hard      That he, who sang before all,—   He who the lore of love expanded,—   By dire reviewers should be branded      As void of wit and moral. 9   And yet, while Beauty’s praise is thine,   Harmonious favourite of the nine,      Repine not at thy lot.   Thy soothing lays may still be read,   When Persecution’s arm is dead,      And critics are forgot. 10   Still I must yield those worthies merit,   Who chasten, with unsparing spirit,      Bad rhymes, and those who write them;   And though myself may be the next   By criticism to be vext,      I really will not fight them. 11   Perhaps they would do quite as well   To break the rudely sounding shell      Of such a young beginner:   He who offends at pert nineteen,   Ere thirty may become, I ween,      A very harden’d sinner. 12   Now, Clare, I must return to you;   And, sure, apologies are due:      Accept, then, my concession   In truth, dear Clare, in fancy’s flight   I soar along from left to right;      My muse admires digression. 13   I think I said ’twould be your fate   To add one star to royal state;—      May regal smiles attend you!   And should a noble monarch reign,   You will not seek his smiles in vain,      If worth can recommend you. 14   Yet since in danger courts abound,   Where specious rivals glitter round,      From snares may saints preserve you;   And grant your love or friendship ne’er   From any claim a kindred care,      But those who best deserve you! 15   Not for a moment may you stray   From truth’s secure, unerring way!      May no delights decoy!   O’er roses may your footsteps move,   Your smiles be ever smiles of love,      Your tears be tears of joy! 16   Oh! if you wish that happiness   Your coming days and years may bless,      And virtues crown your brow;   Be still as you were wont to be,   Spotless as you’ve been known to me,—      Be still as you are now. 17   And though some trifling share of praise,   To cheer my last declining days,      To me were doubly dear;   Whilst blessing your beloved name   I’d waive at once a poet’s fame,      To prove a prophet here.