For The Same Book ( To Louisa C—, For Her Album)

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.