Friend , on whose face I may not look,
So space and chance divide,
Once more I thank you for a book
Across the sundering tide;

And know once more from this, as each,
In notes or soft or strong,
You speak the universal Speech,
The Volapuk of Song.

We live, alas! in prose-rid days:
Yet though the crowd regard
Not greatly now the verse-man's lays,
The frenzy of the Bard,

Take heart. No word sincere, distinct,
Is lost. The heartfelt rhyme
May pulse for ever on the linked
Telegraphy of Time.