'When gathering clouds around I view,
And days are dark and friends are few,
On him I lean, who, not in vain,
Experienced every human pain:
He sees my griefs, allays my fears,
And counts and treasures up my tears.'
Passing the love of woman was his love, indeed; and of him Jonathan
was but such a type, as the light in the dewdrop is the type of the
sun in heaven.
He himself said--and what he said, that he fulfilled--'Greater love
hath no man than this--that a man lay down his life for his
friends.'
In treachery and desertion; in widowhood and childlessness; in the
hour of death, and in the day of judgment, when each soul must stand
alone before its God, one Friend remains, and that the best of all.
{285} From a charter quoted by Ingulf--and very probably a spurious
one.