Gentle Friends, whose sweet songs have enlivened by cell,
Are you come but to bid your old Hermit farewell?
Yet you must not depart from a health-breathing shore,
With those heart-piercing words “You will see me no more.”
Your music, your converse, as sunshine are sweet,
Giving lustre and life to this tranquil retreat,
Think how nature would grieve, how her darkness deplore,
Should the sun when he sets say, “You’ll see me no more.”
But if dark ev’ry lot on this perishing globe,
We all hope to assume immortality’s robe;
And when meeting above, round a throne we adore,
There we all shall rejoice, “To be parted no more.”