This is my favorite poem about how to comfort someone with a great loss. This letter was written to James Whitcomb Riley’s best friend, who comfort him as he grieved for the loss of his wife Martha, who he called “Marthy”.

 

TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAN

For forty year and better you have been a friend to me,

Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity,

You always had a kind word of counsel to impart,

Which was like a healing' liniment to the sorrow of my heart.

When I buried my first woman, William Leachman, it was you

Had the only consolation that I could listen to—

For I knew you had gone through it and had rallied from the blow,

And when you said I'd do the same, I knew you ought to know.

But that time I'll long remember; how I wandered here and there—

Through the setting'-room and kitchen, and out in the open air—

And the snowflakes whirlin', whirlin', and the fields a frozen glare,

And the neighbors' sleds and wagons congregating' everywhere.

I turned my eyes towards heaven, but the sun was hid away;

I turned my eyes towards earth again, but all was cold and gray;

And the clock, like ice a-cracking', clicked the icy hours in two—

And my eye’s had never thawed out if it hadn't been for you!

We set there by the smoke-house—me and you out there alone—

Me a-thinking'—you a-talking' in a soothing' undertone—

You a-talking'—me a-thinking' of the summers long ago,

And writing "Marthy—Marthy" with my finger in the snow!

William Leachman, I can see you just as plain as I could then;

And your hand is on my shoulder, and you rouse me up again,

And I see the tears a-dripping' from your own eyes, as you say:

"Be reconciled and bear it—we but linger for a day!"

The ways were devious, William Leachman, that me and you have passed;

But as I found you true at first, I find you true at last;

And, now the time's a-coming, close to our journey’s end,

I want to throw wide open all my soul to you, my friend.

With the strength of all my being', and the heat of heart and brain,

And every living' drop of blood in artery and vane,

I love you and respect you, and I venerate your name,

For the name of William Leachman and True Manhood's just the same!