FRIENDSHIP.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 141, 20 October 1870, Page 7

FRIENDSHIP.

On the curb lie sat, sound asleep, one night, As * if riend and myself homeward hurried, "We ov«r him bent, and found 'twas a friend Who too late on a spree had tarried. We earned him off to his lodging-house, The latch with his night key turning, And we struggled upstairs to the third storyback, "Where the gab was dimly burning. No useless night-shirt on him we prest, But in blankets and sheets we wound him, And he lay like a mummy, it must be confessed, After some of his friends had bound him. Few and low were the words we said, As we gazed on this " terrible warning," But we thought as we looked at his face in the bed How he'd "think of his head in the morning." We thought, as we tucked him securely in, And. laid his head down on the pillow, Thai "four-pen"orth" next mom would taste better to him Than the wet of the whole ocean billow. Little he thinks of the spirit that's gone Down his throat, and thus helpless has made him ; But he'll wake up all right if he will but sleep on In the bed where his two friends have laid him. And now that our friendly task was done, W<e thought ourselves of retiring, As we heard " the clock in the steeple strike one," No longer to stay desiring. Slowly .and lower we turned the gas down, In that little back room, the third story, As we closed fast the door we knew well by his snore In ifee morning he'd be HONKl dori.