Written after the death of a friend.
I have one sorrow less to bear,
Of those that shall befal me here;
Another grievous woe is past;
Would God that it might be the last!
While through the wilderness I go,
With feeble footsteps, faint and slow,
My dear companions of the way,
How gladly would I bid them stay!
’Tis sweet to travel arm in arm
Along life’s road—the sweetest charm
Of human life is human love,
And friends are blessings from above.
But one who loves them more than I
Calls, “Come up hither,” from on high;
Then joyfully they soar away,
And leave me lonely here to stay.
Yet, when they leave me, well they know
That I, from whose embrace they go,
With swifter steps will travel on
To where my dearest friends have gone.
So, smiling as they take their flight
To regions of celestial light,
They whisper low, with dying breath,
“A short farewell”—then sleep in death.