Verily, from others' griefs are gendered sympathy and kindness;
Patience, humility, and faith, spring not seldom from thine own:
An enemy, humbled by his sorrows, cannot be far from thy forgiveness;
A friend, who hath tasted of calamity, shall fan the dying incense of thy love:
And for thyself, is it a small thing, so to learn thy frailty,
That from an aching bone thou savest the whole body?
The furnace of affliction may be fierce, but if it refineth thy soul,
The good of one meek thought shall outweigh years of torment.
Nevertheless, wretched man, if thy bad heart be hardened in the flame,
Being earth-born, as of clay, and not of moulded wax,