Letters, from absent friends, extinguish fear,
Unite division, and draw distance near;
Their magic force each silent read more

Letters, from absent friends, extinguish fear,
Unite division, and draw distance near;
Their magic force each silent wish conveys,
And wafts embodied though, a thousand ways:
Could souls to bodies write, death's pow'r were mean,
For minds could then meet minds with heav'n between.

Kind messages, that pass from land to land;
Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history,
In read more

Kind messages, that pass from land to land;
Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history,
In which we feel the pressure of a hand,--
One touch of fire,--and all the rest is mystery!

Line after line my gushing eye o'erflow,
Led thro' a said variety of woe:
Now warm in read more

Line after line my gushing eye o'erflow,
Led thro' a said variety of woe:
Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom,
Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!

Ev'n so, with all submission, I
. . . .
Send you each year a homely letter,
read more

Ev'n so, with all submission, I
. . . .
Send you each year a homely letter,
Who may return me much a better.

I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had
time to make it shorter.
read more

I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had
time to make it shorter.
[Fr., Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parceque je n'ai pas
eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.]

Messenger of sympathy and love,
Servant of parted friends,
Consoler of the lonely,
Bond read more

Messenger of sympathy and love,
Servant of parted friends,
Consoler of the lonely,
Bond of the scattered family,
Enlarger of the common life.

Belshazzar had a letter,--
He never had but one;
Belshazzar's correspondence
Concluded and begun
read more

Belshazzar had a letter,--
He never had but one;
Belshazzar's correspondence
Concluded and begun
In that immortal copy
The conscience of us all
Can read without its glasses
On revelation's wall.

(He) put that which was most material in the postscript.

(He) put that which was most material in the postscript.

The welcome news is in the letter found;
The carrier's not commission'd to expound;
It speaks itself, read more

The welcome news is in the letter found;
The carrier's not commission'd to expound;
It speaks itself, and what it does contain,
In all things needful to be known is plain.