The face of the stranger, and his heart is sick. 
Man of the world, what canst thou do for him? 
Wealth is a burden, which he could not bear;
Mirth a strange crime, the which he dares not act;
And wine no cordial, but a bitter cup. 
For wounds like his Christ is the only cure,
And gospel promises are his by right,
For these were given to the poor in heart. 
Go, preach thou to him of a world to come,
Where friends shall meet, and know each other’s face. 
Say less than this, and say it to the winds.

October, 1797.

WRITTEN ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 1797

I am a widow’d thing, now thou art gone! 
Now thou art gone, my own familiar friend,
Companion, sister, help-mate, counsellor! 
Alas! that honour’d mind, whose sweet reproof
And meekest wisdom in times past have smooth’d
The unfilial harshness of my foolish speech,
And made me loving to my parents old,
(Why is this so, ah God! why is this so?)
That honour’d mind become a fearful blank,
Her senses lock’d up, and herself kept out
From human sight or converse, while so many
Of the foolish sort are left to roam at large,
Doing all acts of folly, and sin, and shame? 
Thy paths are mystery!

                              Yet I will not think,
        Sweet friend, but we shall one day meet, and live
        In quietness, and die so, fearing God. 
        Or if not, and these false suggestions be
        A fit of the weak nature, loth to part
        With what it lov’d so long, and held so dear;
        If thou art to be taken, and I left
        (More sinning, yet unpunish’d, save in thee),
        It is the will of God, and we are clay
        In the potter’s hands; and, at the worst, are made
        From absolute nothing, vessels of disgrace,
        Till, his most righteous purpose wrought in us,
        Our purified spirits find their perfect rest.

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES

        (January, 1798. Text of 1818)

        I have had playmates, I have had companions,
        In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,
        All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

        I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
        Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies,
        All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

        I loved a love once, fairest among women;
        Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her—­
        All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

        I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
        Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
        Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

        Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood. 
        Earth seemed a desart I was bound to traverse,
        Seeking to find the old familiar faces.