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.