With all its best of sense and wit
Each Album's earlier leaves are writ;
No page—but Love and Friendship on it
Shower dainty prose and perfumed sonnet;
While not one troubling thought comes nigh
Of future dearth and vacancy.
Yet blight, e'en now, is on the wing
To nip that vernal blossoming;
His tribute flowers Wit fails to yield,
Sense, worldly grown, seeks wider field;
E'en Love and Friendship cease to write,
And half the book is idle white.
Turn, Emblem-seeker, turn and look,
Thou'lt find a moral in the book.
Though young, its lot may soon be thine;
Searce old, long since I've found it mine.
Youth's early loves, like vapour, fled;
Its friendships—with the cold—the dead,—
The lofty hopes by manhood cherished
In disappointment plunged and perished;
Year after year they struggled—sank—
Then left my life this Album's blank.