Friendship. Poem by Maria Gowen Brooks

To meet a friendship such as mine,
Such feelings must the soul refine,
As are not oft of mortal birth; —
'T is love, without a stain of earth.

Looks are its food, its nectar sighs,
Its couch the lips, its throne the eyes,
The soul its breath, and so possest,
Heaven's raptures reign in mortal breast.

Though Friendship be its earthly name,
Purely from highest Heaven it came;
'T is seldom felt for more than one,
And scorns to dwell with Venus' son.

Him let it view not, or it dies
Like tender hues of morning skies,
Or morn's sweet flower, of purple glow,
When sunny beams too ardent grow.

A charm o'er every object plays —
All looks so lovely while it stays,
So softly forth, in rosier tides,
The vital flood ecstatic glides,

That, wrung by grief to see it part,
Its dearest drop escapes the heart;
Such drop, I need not tell thee, fell.
While bidding it, for thee, farewell.