Instructress! from whose lips improvement came, 395
And study lost the rigour of its name,
Friend! still by time and circumstance untried,
Forgive the homage of a filial pride!
Forgive, if from the brief excursive lay
I pause, love’s light and willing debt to pay. 400
My minstrel harp in vain would ask my care,
If memory’s were a chord forbidden there;
And little worth, that heartless verse, I deem,
Unconsecrate by friendship’s steady beam.