FRIENDSHIP

When presses hard my load of care,

And other friends from me depart,

I want a friend my grief to share,

With faithful speech and loving heart.

I want a friend of noble mind,

Who loves me more than praise or pelf,

Reproves my faults with spirit kind,

And thinks of me as well as self —

A friend whose ear is ever closed

Against traducers’ poison breath;

And, though in me be not disclosed

An equal love, yet loves till death —

A friend who knows my weakness well,

And ever seeks to calm my fears;

If words should fail the storm to quell,

Will soothe my fevered heart with tears —

A friend not moved by jealousy

Should I outrun him in life's race;

And though I doubt, still trusts in me

With loyal heart and cloudless face.

True friendship knows both joy and grief,

The sweetest pleasure, keenest pain;

Its sharpest pangs are ever brief,

Mere flitting clouds before the rain.

But soon the joy returns again

With bluer sky and brighter light;

The grief proves but a narrow glen

All full of flowers, though hid from sight.

And e'en in darkness we inhale

The fragrant odors love emits;

Friendship like this can never fail —

On love's strong throne its monarch sits.

True friendship is of greater worth

Than words, though they were solid gold.

To all the glittering gems of earth

I it prefer, a thousandfold.

One Friend I have who knows my heart,

And loves me with a changeless love;

I love Him, too — nor death can part

Us two, for we will love above.

A woman's love to His is faint;

No brother cleaves as close as He;

No seraph words could ever paint

The love this Friend now bears to me.