The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

Miscellany.

FROM THE NEW-YORK EVENING POST.

The following stanzas, for beauty and exquisite finish, are infinitely superior to the verses generally offered on similar occasions. They were written by a friend of the late Dr. J. R. Drake, of this city. A devotion to the Muses marked his early life, and many of his unpublished productions would not discredit (we speak it confidently) the pen of a Moore or a Campbell. "He fell an early victim to the consumption—a disease which seems peculiarly to select for the object of its attack, the amiable, the intelligent and the virtuous:

LINES, On the late Dr. Joseph R. Drake."

Green be the sod above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee, but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.

Tears fell, when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
And long, where thou art lying,
Will tears thy cold turf steep.

When hearts, whose home was Heaven,
Like thine are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow,
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and wo were thine:

It should be mine to braid it
Around thy faded brow:
But I've in vain essayed it,
And feel I cannot now.

While memory bids me weep thee,
Nor thoughts or words are free—
The grief is fixed too deeply
That mourns a man like thee.

* This gentleman is well understood to have been one of the ingenious writers of the poems of Croaker.