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,
Which checks the ardor of a youthful fire;
Dwells not with Genius; is in Fancy lost;
And bids poetic ectasy expire?

Is it the sleepy wisdom of the schools,
The cheating craft of worldly-minded men,
The policy of mad Ambition's fools,
Or flows it from the Moralist's dull pen?

Is it to check each soft emotion's rise;
To wrap in clay-cold apathy the heart;
Each object void of Fancy's aid to prize,
And tear from Happiness its better part?

If this be common sense; Oh, grant me heav'n,
The fuller blessings of the feeling mind!
To worldlings still let common sense be giv❜n,
Indulge me with a sense of nobler kind!

Be mine to ramble still in Fancy's maze,
By fond Imagination led astray;

On Life's bright prospects chearfully to gaze,
And strew with flowers its transitory way!

FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE,

A SCHOOL EXERCISE.

BY WILLIAM PRESTON, ESQ.

YES-take my heart, and let it prove
All Friendship's glad controul;
But never may the rage of Love
Possess my quiet soul.

For Friendship is a gen'rous balm,
The wounded mind to heal,

To still the pangs, the cares to calm,
That wretched mortals feel:

But Love, a draught of noxious pow'r.

Whoe'er the potion drinks,

Infuriate wastes the madden'd hour,
Or in oblivion sinks.

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,
That rend the mountain's side;
Where never pilgrim slak'd his thirst,
Or painted flow'r was spied.

Come, Friendship, come; thy radiance lend,
To chear the mournful breast:

A thousand woes my bosom rend;

O charm my woes to rest.

Hail, holy Friendship, mark divine
Of Man's imperial mind,

Thy rays but faint, and dimly shine,
In Woman's feebler kind.

With Love their gentle natures flame,
Or melt with Pity's tear;

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,
The mutual ardour glows;

Nor light Caprice, nor mean Disgust,
Nor sordid aim, it knows.

Etherial Ardour, spark divine,
Of chaste seraphic Love,

It bids the eyes of angels shine,
It warms the Blest above.

Thou, Friendship, art a pledge and proof,
There is a sex in souls.

While Pride detains the Great aloof,
And Fear the Mean controuls;

Thou com'st to pour thy lambent light
Thro' the deep dungeon's grate;
To chear the dim despairing sight,
And smooth the wretch's fate.

Love is enamour'd of the bloom,
And vernal morn of life;

It flies from Age, from Sorrow's gloom,
From Danger, and from Strife.

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,
Should toiling Friendship stray,
She casts, like the translucent rill,
All earthy dross away.

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,
To joy peculiar guides.

The diamond, falsely understood,
Allures with changeful glare,
It burns a transitory good,

And vanishes in air.

An opal, fix'd, thro' chance and years,
With mild and temperate ray,

The fiercest flame of trial bears,
Impassive to decay.

Still unassuming, still the same,
Is Friendship's steady light;
But Love is wasted in its flame,
Combustible, and bright.

A thousand, and a thousand names

Of lovers are enroll'd:

Their story lives, we read their flames, In modern Bards, and old.