I want someone to laugh with me, someone to be grave with me, someone to please me and help my discrimination with his or her own remark, and at times, no doubt, to admire my acuteness and penetration.
Nature’s law, That man was made to mourn. Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! O Death, the poor man’s dearest friend, The kindest and the best!
God knows, I’m not the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be, But twenty times I rather would be An atheist clean, Than under gospel colours hid be Just for a screen.
And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway, And mind your duty, duly, morn and night; Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might: They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright.
Your lines, I maintain it, are poetry, and good poetry. Friendship had I been so blest as to have met with you in time, might have led me – God of love only knows where.
