Oh,
are there friends, who, when they part,
As fondly meet again?
Doth absence never bring the heart
A deep and lasting pain?
How may frail human nature speak
Of changeless soulfelt joy,
And in a cloud-wrapt future seek
A bliss without alloy!
One
yearning heart may beat so true
That time has pass’d it by,
And left o’er life no sombre hue
To whisper age more nigh.
Alas for such—their lonely lot
Hath little joy below,
The roseate flow’rs that Hope has wrought
Will lose their sunny glow.
It
may not be the heart is changed,
But all is changed around,
And sever’d paths have oft estranged
Friends long in kindness bound—
But oh! tis sad to yearn, to pine—
For Love once fondly given,
And but pale buds of mem’ry twine,
Frail as the links now riven;
To
feel the flowing thoughts that rise
Are laid in prisons lone,
And never read in beaming eyes
Their answer to our own;—
To dream of interest ling’ring still
In friends we claim no more,
Till voiceless tears the soul that fill
E’en Mem’ry blotteth o’er.
Oh
upward—upward wing the soul,
Till its lone caverns deep
With love that needs not cold control,
With joys that need not weep—
Up to that Home where love may rest
Unfailing to the end,
Where in each bright and angel guest
We hail a changeless friend.
