| |
| IF we no old historian’s name | |
| Authentic will admit, | |
| But think all said of Friendship’s fame | |
| But Poetry or Wit: | |
| Yet what’s revered by minds so pure, | 5 |
| Must be a bright Idea sure. | |
| |
| But as our immortality | |
| By inward sense we find, | |
| Judging that if it could not be, | |
| It would not be design’d: | 10 |
| So here how could such copies fall, | |
| If there were no original? | |
| |
| But if truth be in ancient song, | |
| Or story we believe, | |
| If the inspired and graver throng | 15 |
| Have scornèd to deceive; | |
| There have been hearts whose friendship gave | |
| Them thoughts at once both soft and brave. | |
| |
| Among that consecrated few, | |
| Some more seraphic shade | 20 |
| Lend me a favourable clew | |
| Now mists my eyes invade. | |
| Why, having filled the world with fame, | |
| Left you so little of your flame? | |
| |
| Why is’t so difficult to see | 25 |
| Two bodies and one mind? | |
| And why are those who else agree | |
| So differently kind? | |
| Hath Nature such fantastic art, | |
| That she can vary every heart; | 30 |
| |
| Why are the bands of Friendship tied | |
| With so remiss a knot, | |
| That by the most it is defied, | |
| And by the rest forgot? | |
| Why do we step with so light sense | 35 |
| From Friendship to Indifference? | |
| |
| If Friendship sympathy impart, | |
| Why this ill-shuffled game, | |
| That heart can never meet with heart, | |
| Or flame encounter flame? | 40 |
| What does this cruelty create? | |
| Is’t the intrigue of Love or Fate? | |
| |
| Had Friendship ne’er been known to men, | |
| (The Ghost at last confest) | |
| The World had been a stranger then | 45 |
| To all that Heaven possest. | |
| But could it all be here acquired, | |
| Not Heaven itself would be desired. | |
| |
