I see his
nature groping yonder so like mine. We do not live far apart.
Have not the fates associated us in many ways? It says, in the
Vishnu Purana: "Seven paces together is sufficient for the
friendship of the virtuous, but thou and I have dwelt together."
Is it of no significance that we have so long partaken of the
same loaf, drank at the same fountain, breathed the same air
summer and winter, felt the same heat and cold; that the same
fruits have been pleased to refresh us both, and we have never
had a thought of different fibre the one from the other!
Nature doth have her dawn each day,
But mine are far between;
Content, I cry, for sooth to say,
Mine brightest are I ween.
For when my sun doth deign to rise,
Though it be her noontide,
Her fairest field in shadow lies,
Nor can my light abide.
Sometimes I bask me in her day,
Conversing with my mate,
But if we interchange one ray,
Forthwith her heats abate.
Through his discourse I climb and see,
As from some eastern hill,
A brighter morrow rise to me
Than lieth in her skill.
As 't were two summer days in one,
Two Sundays come together,
Our rays united make one sun,
With fairest summer weather.
As surely as the sunset in my latest November shall translate me
to the ethereal world, and remind me of the ruddy morning of
youth; as surely as the last strain of music which falls on my
decaying ear shall make age to be forgotten, or, in short, the
manifold influences of nature survive during the term of our
natural life, so surely my Friend shall forever be my Friend, and
reflect a ray of God to me, and time shall foster and adorn and
consecrate our Friendship, no less than the ruins of temples.
