I Knew A Man By Sight

I knew a man by sight,

      A blameless wight,

  Who, for a year or more,

  Had daily passed my door,

Yet converse none had had with him.

  I met him in a lane,

      Him and his cane,

  About three miles from home,

  Where I had chanced to roam,

And volumes stared at him, and he at me.

  In a more distant place

      I glimpsed his face,

  And bowed instinctively;

  Starting he bowed to me,

Bowed simultaneously, and passed along.

  Next, in a foreign land

      I grasped his hand,

  And had a social chat,

  About this thing and that,

As I had known him well a thousand years.

  Late in a wilderness

      I shared his mess,

  For he had hardships seen,

  And I a wanderer been;

He was my bosom friend, and I was his.

  And as, methinks, shall all,

      Both great and small,

  That ever lived on earth,

  Early or late their birth,

Stranger and foe, one day each other know.