Charles Swain’s poem ‘If thou hast lost a friend’ appeared in the London Journal in 1853 and has been transcribed by Stephen Basdeo.[1]

If thou has lost a friend,

By hard or hasty word,

Go—call him to thy heart again

Let Pride no more be heard.

Remind him of those happy days,

Too beautiful to last;

Ask if a word should cancel years

Of truth and friendship past?

Oh! If thou’st lost a friend,

By hard or hasty word,

Go—call him to thy heart again

Let Pride no more be heard.

Oh! Tell him from thy thought

The light of joy hath fled;

That in thy sad and silent breast,

Thy lonely heart seems dead;

That mount and vale—each path you trod

By morn or evening dim,—

Reproach you with their frowning gaze,

And ask your soul for him.

Then, if thou’st lost a friend,

By hard or hasty word,

Go—call him to thy heart again

Let Pride no more be heard.

[1] Charles Swain, ‘If thou hast lost a friend’, London Journal, 11 June 1853, 216.