Till angels greet him with a sweeter one In heaven, on earth we call him EMERSON.

I start; I wake; the vision is withdrawn; Its figures fading like the stars at dawn; Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names,

And memory's pictures fading in their frames;

Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams!

1884.

THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP 1

SHE gathered at her slender waist
The beauteous robe she wore;
Its folds a golden belt embraced,
One rose-hued gem it bore.

The girdle shrank; its lessening round
Still kept the shining gem,

But now her flowing locks it bound,
A lustrous diadem.

And narrower still the circlet grew; Behold! a glittering band,

Its roseate diamond set anew,

Her neck's white column spanned.

Suns rise and set; the straining clasp
The shortened links resist,
Yet flashes in a bracelet's grasp
The diamond, on her wrist.

At length, the round of changes past
The thieving years could bring,
The jewel, glittering to the last,
Still sparkles in a ring.

So, link by link, our friendships part,
So loosen, break, and fall,
A narrowing zone; the loving heart
Lives changeless through them all.

THE minstrel of the classic lay Of love and wine who sings Still found the fingers run astray That touched the rebel strings.

Of Cadmus he would fain have sung,
Of Atreus and his line;
But all the jocund echoes rung
of love and wine.

With

songs

Ah, brothers! I would fain have caught
Some fresher fancy's gleam;

My truant accents find, unsought,
The old familiar theme.

Love, Love! but not the sportive child With shaft and twanging bow, Whose random arrows drove us wild Some threescore years ago;

Not Eros, with his joyous laugh,

The urchin blind and bare,
But Love, with spectacles and staff,
And scanty, silvered hair.

Our heads with frosted locks are white,
Our roofs are thatched with snow,
But red, in chilling winter's spite,
Our hearts and hearthstones glow.

Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in,
And while the running sands
Their golden thread unheeded spin,
He warms his frozen hands.

1 The last of the poems written for the class of '29. See the letter from Samuel May to F. J. Garrison, quoted in Morse's Life of Holmes, vol. i, p. 78: After the Curfew" was positively the last. "Farewell! I let the curtain fall." The curtain never rose again for 29." We met once more a year later at Parker's. But three were present, Smith, Holmes, and myself. No poem very quiet-something very like tears. The following meetings-all at Dr. H.'s house were quiet, social, talking meetings- the Doctor of course doing the live talking. At one of these meetings four were present, all the survivors but one; and there was more general talk. But never another Class Poem.'

This poem, and the three following, appeared in Over the Teacups.

2 The personal reference is to our greatly beloved and honored classmate, James Freeman Clarke. (HOLMES.)