by Edward Kenealy.
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.4 #3 (1843).
Sent with a presentation copy of Anster's Xeniola.
This book that I send thee was giv'n me in days
When my heart like thine own was as fresh as the flowers,
When Pleasure threw round me her roses like rays,
And Life seem'd a journey through gardens and bowers;
But years have pass'd on, and my spirit no more
Wears that bloom of enjoyment, but tearfully sees,
Like some exile whose bark moves away from the shore,
The fondly-loved landscapes fade off by degrees.
As it hath been with me, so it shall be with all—
And haply thou, too, mayst in moments of gloom
The image of pleasures departed recal
That charm'd thee in days like the present of bloom.
If thou shouldst, let these "love-gifts," bestow'd by thy friend,
Bring to mem'ry his words breathed in days of the past—
"That beauty of face shall alone have an end,
But beauty of heart shall survive to the last."