Providence is like the sky,
Like the sun and rain;
Love-of-Friends is of the ground:
Fragrance, fragrance how profound
In the time of pain!

Was it Asia, was it Spring
Touched the barren bowers?
Quick, delicious, curative,
What was this ye gave, and give,
O my world of flowers?

Sweetnesses, a spirit sea,
Welled and overflowed;
Weakened in the vale of dread,
There on sweetnesses I fed.
Every breath bestowed.

Heaped on one unworthy heart
Balm which never ends:
Dead, I shall inhale it yet,
(Ah, verbena, mignonette!)
Precious Love-of-Friends.