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Where art thou friend, whom I shall never see,
Conceiving whom I must conceive amiss?
Or sunder'd from my sight in the age that is
Or far-off promise of a time to be;
Thou who canst best accept the certainty
That thou hadst borne proportion in my bliss,
That likest in me either that or this, —
Oh! even for the weakness of the plea
That I have taken to plead with, — if the sound
Of God's dear pleadings have as yet not moved thee, —
And for those virtues I in thee have found,
Who say that had I known I had approved thee, —
For these, make all the virtues to abound, —
No, but for Christ who hath foreknown and loved thee.
