THE DEPARTED FRIEND.
O friend! the light is dead
In thy fair mansion, where in bright array
Love moved with buoyant tread,
And childhood's merry laughter, day by day,
Made the heart glad, and music lent its zest,
And hospitable smiles allured the welcome guest.
And in the holy place
A brow of beautiful and earnest thought,
A form of manly grace,
Are missing; and we gaze with sorrow fraught
Upon that vacant seat where beam'd for years
That spirit-speaking eye, the pastor's toil that cheers.
And from the couch of pain,
The cell of want, a voice hath pass'd away
Which sooth'd the suffering train,
And warn'd the smitten sinful man to pray;
Which, till the verge of life, with accents clear,
Told how a Christian's faith the hour of death can cheer.
O Friend! how great thy gain,
Thus borne in manhood's vigour to the skies,
Ere age or wasting pain
Had chill'd the full fount of thy sympathies,
Those sympathies that still with ardent glow
Joy'd at another's joy, or mourn'd for other's wo.
