Dear friend! wilt thou believe me? time will come, When the sharp edge of sorrow worn away, That grief and anguish now so burdensome, At length a placid sadness will allay; In which absorb’d, as yet o’erwhelm’d, the soul Folds itself up all silently to bear; Nor seeks nor envies, as around they roll, The world’s delights or pleasures more to share. Thou doubt’st perchance; and once there was a time I also doubted it; and endless thought My deep affliction, and insulting crime To tell me to an end it could be brought. And yet it was! for so from God to man That is another mercy, which alone, Amidst so many woes ’tis his to scan, Aids him this weary life to suffer on. Hope then, believe my words, and trust in me: Who in this world the unhappy privilege Has bought so dear to speak of misery? These many years that saw it me assiege, Saw me no day but as the plaything vile Of a dire fate, that like a shrub amain The hurricane tears up, and raised awhile It fiercely dashes to the earth again. I know it true, against the blows of fate, When that against ourselves they only glance, The firm heart shielded can withstand its hate; But so it is not oft: and thou, perchance, Mayst think I never one have lost I loved More than my life. If sorrow will give truce Thee for a moment, turn thine eyes disproved To an unhappy orphan, weak, recluse, And sorrowing solitary in the world, Without scarce one to whom to weep his woe; For to the grave relentless death had hurl’d, One after one, all he was born to know. In the same season, thou wilt see sufficed Thy loss to open forth the wounds I bear, I lost a mother kind, and idolized, My joy, and comforter in every care; On her steps my reaved father to the grave Soon follow’d, and both sank o’erwhelm’d in tears, Calling my name afar; the cries they gave Fell on my heart, but not upon my ears. I ran, I flew, I came, but all in vain: Both now beneath the fatal stone reposed, And I my height of anguish to attain, But found the covering earth yet newly closed. Thou in thy grave affliction more hast found Thee to console, if possible; (how turn Rebels against me thy own woes around! From my rude voice perforce thou hast to learn That he who fortune flatter’d not before, Will neither flatter grief) thou in thy loss Hast found a thousand comforts, which forbore My cruel fate to grant my path across; Thou soothing saw’st thy wife in her last pains; Her last sigh couldst receive; couldst press her hands, Her arms raised to thee, and her pledge remains In thine, her daughter still thy love demands.