I never saw you, never grasped your hand, <br />Nor wrote nor read lines absence loves to trace, <br />Ne'er with you sate in your accustomed place, <br />Nor waited for your coming on sea or land. <br />But this I know, if along unseen strand, <br />Or anywhere in God's eternal space, <br />You heard my voice, or I beheld your face, <br />That we should greet, and both would understand. <br />So, till that hour, wherever you abide, <br />On circling star, or interstellar sea, <br />Or where, from man's imagination free, <br />There moves no planet and there sounds no tide, <br />Welcome, as though from friend long known and tried, <br />This gift of loving fellowship from me.<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-robert-louis-stevenson/
