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To D.F.

   Accept my friend this guide to truth.
Where Eloquence and wisdom joined
   Instruct the steps of headlong youth
To keep the path by Heaven assigned

   Though clad in sad and sober guise
He comes on rueful themes intent
   Yet not unwelcome to the wise
Whose steps in search of truth are bent.

   Yet not so much the gloomy sage
My friend must heed nor long pursue
   His steps through this disastrous page
Nor deam his ghastly painting true

   To him this fairy scene of life
Was early stript of all its charms
   And seemed a stormy sea of strife
With tumults vexed and loud alarms

   The dæmon melancholy swayed
His soul: the black infernal power
   His Youth, to formless fears betrayed
And haunted his declining hours


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Yet not with weak unsteadfast hand
   Regardful still of Reasons bound
He swayed the bright Hermetic Wand
   And shed its potent charms around

   Though ofspring of no faultless kind
And still an alien to the Skies
   Fair Virtue I rejoice to find
Enlisting in her cause the wise

   And I, though praise thou shrink’st to hear,
A Teacher though austere is he
   In him her awful friend revere
Adore her meekest child in thee ~
C. B. B ~ rown