ADDRESS TO FRIENDSHIP. Friendship! thou noblest ardor of the soul! Immortal essence! languor's best support! Chief dignifying proof of glorious man! Firm cement of the world! endearing tie, Which binds the willing soul, and brings along Her chastest, strongest, and sublimest powers! All else the dregs of spirit. Love's soft flame, Bewildering, leads th'infatuated soul; Levels, depresses, wraps in endless mists, Contracts, dissolves, enervates and enslaves, Relaxes, sinks, distracts, while Fancy fills Th'inflaming draught, and aids the calenture. Intoxicating charm! yet well refin'd By Virtue's brightening flame, pure it ascends, As incense in its grateful circles mounts, Till, mixt and lost, with Thee it boasts thy name. Thou unfound blessing! woo'd with eager hope, As clowns the nightly vapour swift pursue, And fain wou'd grasp to cheer their lonely way; Vain the wide stretch, and vain the shorten'd breath, For, ah! the bright delusion onward flies, While the sad swain deceiv'd, now cautious treads The common beaten track, nor quits it more. Not unexisting art thou, but so rare, That delving souls ne'er find thee; 'tis to thee, When found, if ever found, sweet fugitive, The noble mind opes all her richest stores; Thy firm, strong hold suits the courageous breast, Where stubborn virtues dwell in secret league, And each conspires to fortify the rest. Etherial spirits alone may hope to prove Thy strong, yet soften'd rapture; soften'd more When penitence succeeds to injury; When, doubting pardon, the meek, pleading eye On which the soul had once with pleasure dwelt, Swims in the tear of sorrow and repentance. The faultless mind with treble pity views The tarnish'd friend, who feels the sting of shame; 'Tis then too little barely to forgive; Nor can the soul rest on that frigid thought, But rushing swiftly from her Stoic heights, With all her frozen feelings melted down By Pity's genial beams, she sinks, distrest, Shares the contagion, and with lenient hand Lifts the warm chalice fill'd with consolation. Yet Friendship's name oft decks the crafty lip, With seeming virtue clothes the ruthless soul; Grief-soothing notes, well feign'd to look like Truth, Like an insidious serpent softly creep To the poor, guileless, unsuspecting heart, Wind round in wily folds, and sinking deep Explore her sacred treasures, basely heave Her hoard of woes to an unpitying world; First sooths, ensnares, exposes, and betrays. What art thou, fiend, who thus usurp'st the form Of the soft Cherub? Tell me, by what name The ostentatious call thee, thou who wreck'st The gloomy peace of sorrow-loving souls? Why thou art Vanity, ungenerous sprite, Who tarnishest the action deem'd so great, And of soul-saving essence. But for thee, How pure, how bright wou'd Theron's virtues shine; And, but that Thou art incorp'rate with the flame, Which else wou'd bless where'er its beams illume, My grateful spirit had recorded here Thy splendid seemings. Long I've known their worth. O, 'tis the deepest error man can prove, To fancy joys disinterested can live, Indissoluble, pure, unmix'd with self; Why, 'twere to be immortal, 'twere to own No part but spirit in this chilling gloom. My soul's ambitious, and its utmost stretch Wou'd be, to own a friend — but that's deny'd. Now, at this bold avowal, gaze, ye eyes, Which kindly melted at my woe-fraught tale; Start back, Benevolence, and shun the charge; Soft bending Pity, fly the sullen phrase, Ungrateful as it seems. My abject fate Excites the willing hand of Charity, The momentary sigh, the pitying tear, And instantaneous act of bounty bland, To Misery so kind; yet not to you, Bounty, or Charity, or Mercy mild, The pensive thought applies fair friendship's name; That name which never yet cou'd dare exist But in equality [...]