FRIENDSHIP IN ABSENCE.
43
'T were an ill world, I'll swear, for every friend,
If distance could their union end:
But Love itself does far advance
Above the power of time and space;
It scorns such outward circumstance,
His time's for ever, every-where his place.
If distance could their union end:
But Love itself does far advance
Above the power of time and space;
It scorns such outward circumstance,
His time's for ever, every-where his place.
I'm there with thee, yet here with me thou art,
Lodg'd in each other's heart:
Miracles cease not yet in love.
When he his mighty power will try,
Absence itself does bounteous prove,
And strangely ev'n our presence multiply.
Lodg'd in each other's heart:
Miracles cease not yet in love.
When he his mighty power will try,
Absence itself does bounteous prove,
And strangely ev'n our presence multiply.
Pure is the flame of Friendship, and divine,
Like that which in Heaven's sun does shine:
He in the upper air and sky
Does no effects of heat bestow;
But, as his beams the farther fly,
He begets warmth, life, beauty, here below.
Like that which in Heaven's sun does shine:
He in the upper air and sky
Does no effects of heat bestow;
But, as his beams the farther fly,
He begets warmth, life, beauty, here below.
Friendship is less apparent when too nigh,
Like objects if they touch the eye.
Less meritorious then is love;
For when we friends together see
So much, so much both one do prove,
That their love then seems but self-love to be.
Like objects if they touch the eye.
Less meritorious then is love;
For when we friends together see
So much, so much both one do prove,
That their love then seems but self-love to be.
Each day think on me, and each day I shall
For thee make hours canonical.
For thee make hours canonical.
