TO A FRIEND IN AUSTRALIA.

Old Friend! though distant far,
   Your image nightly shines upon my soul;
I yearn towards it as towards the star
   That points through darkness to the ancient pole.

Out of my heart the longing wishes fly,

   As to some rapt Elias, Enoch, Seth;
Yours is another earth, another sky,
   And I, I feel that distance is like death.

Oh! for one week amid the emerald fields,
   Where the Avoca sings the song of Moore;

Oh! for the odour the brown heather yields,
   To glad the Pilgrim’s heart on Glenmalur.

Yet is there still what meeting could not give,
   A joy most suited of all joys to last;
For ever in fair memory there must live

   The bright, unclouded picture of the Past. [Page 53]

Old Friend! the years wear on, and many cares
   And many sorrows both of us have known;
Time for us both a quiet couch prepares—
   A couch like Jacob’s, pillowed with a stone.

And oh! when thus we sleep may we behold
   Th’ angelic ladder of the Patriarch’s dream;
And may my feet upon its rungs of gold
   Your’s follow, as of old, by hill and stream. [Page 54]