With a volume of Horatian echoes.

When once in Rome long, long ago
A poet bade his booklet go
Salute a friend, whose learned page
The world would read for many an age,
He warned it: " See thou choose a time
Befitting mirth and trifling rhyme, —
The lamp-lit hour, when red wine flows
And perfumes drip, when reigns the rose.
Then even Catos may relent
And tolerate thy merriment. "
So, Irving, though I'd not aspire
To Martial's grace and wit and fire,
To you who play a Pliny's part, —
Versed in no unlaborious art,
Nor less than he a faithful friend, —
It is to you these rhymes I send.
Would they were not so far below
His merit to whose hand they go!

Some day you'll tire of dates and names,
Of weighing deeds and sifting blames;
When you will find your fancy roams
And will not brook your ordered tomes;
When John Brown's memory repels,
And you care naught for Appenzels ,
Even Rhode Island seems a bore,
And California charms no more.
Till such an hour should chance to come
I warn these verses to be dumb.
But then will be the time to look
At your old schoolmate's frivolous book.
In easy chair and slippered ease
Laugh with, or at, such rhymes as these.
And sure I am you'll stay awake
To read them through for old sake's sake!