10 Best Famous Friendships Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Friendships poems. This is a select list of the best famous Friendships poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Friendships poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of friendships poems.

• All Famous Friendships Poems

 Smith, great writer of stories, drank; found it immortalized his pen;
Fused in his brain-pan, else a blank, heavens of glory now and then;
Gave him the magical genius touch; God-given power to gouge out, fling
Flat in your face a soul-thought -- Bing!
Twiddle your heart-strings in his clutch. "Bah!" said Smith, "let my body lie
 stripped to the buff in swinish shame,
If I can blaze in the radiant sky out of adoring stars my name.
Sober am I nonentitized; drunk am I more than half a god.
Well, let the flesh be sacrificed; spirit shall speak and shame the clod.
Who would not gladly, gladly give Life to do one thing that will live?"

Smith had a friend, we'll call him Brown; dearer than brothers were those two.
When in the wassail Smith would drown, Brown would rescue and pull him through.
When Brown was needful Smith would lend; so it fell as the years went by,
Each on the other would depend: then at the last Smith came to die.

There Brown sat in the sick man's room, still as a stone in his despair;
Smith bent on him his eyes of doom, shook back his lion mane of hair;
Said: "Is there one in my chosen line, writer of forthright tales my peer?
Look in that little desk of mine; there is a package, bring it here.
Story of stories, gem of all; essence and triumph, key and clue;
Tale of a loving woman's fall; soul swept hell-ward, and God! it's true.
I was the man -- Oh, yes, I've paid, paid with mighty and mordant pain.
Look! here's the masterpiece I've made out of my sin, my manhood slain.
Art supreme! yet the world would stare, know my mistress and blaze my shame.
I have a wife and daughter -- there! take it and thrust it in the flame."

Brown answered: "Master, you have dipped pen in your heart, your phrases sear.
Ruthless, unflinching, you have stripped naked your soul and set it here.
Have I not loved you well and true? See! between us the shadows drift;
This bit of blood and tears means You -- oh, let me have it, a parting gift.
Sacred I'll hold it, a trust divine; sacred your honour, her dark despair;
Never shall it see printed line: here, by the living God I swear."
Brown on a Bible laid his hand; Smith, great writer of stories, sighed:
"Comrade, I trust you, and understand. Keep my secret!" And so he died.

Smith was buried -- up soared his sales; lured you his books in every store;
Exquisite, whimsy, heart-wrung tales; men devoured them and craved for more.
So when it slyly got about Brown had a posthumous manuscript,
Jones, the publisher, sought him out, into his pocket deep he dipped.
"A thousand dollars?" Brown shook his head. "The story is not for sale, " he said.

Jones went away, then others came. Tempted and taunted, Brown was true.
Guarded at friendship's shrine the fame of the unpublished story grew and grew.
It's a long, long lane that has no end, but some lanes end in the Potter's field;
Smith to Brown had been more than friend: patron, protector, spur and shield.
Poor, loving-wistful, dreamy Brown, long and lean, with a smile askew,
Friendless he wandered up and down, gaunt as a wolf, as hungry too.
Brown with his lilt of saucy rhyme, Brown with his tilt of tender mirth
Garretless in the gloom and grime, singing his glad, mad songs of earth:
So at last with a faith divine, down and down to the Hunger-line.

There as he stood in a woeful plight, tears a-freeze on his sharp cheek-bones,
Who should chance to behold his plight, but the publisher, the plethoric Jones;
Peered at him for a little while, held out a bill: "NOW, will you sell?"
Brown scanned it with his twisted smile: "A thousand dollars! you go to hell!"

Brown enrolled in the homeless host, sleeping anywhere, anywhen;
Suffered, strove, became a ghost, slave of the lamp for other men;
For What's-his-name and So-and-so in the abyss his soul he stripped,
Yet in his want, his worst of woe, held he fast to the manuscript.
Then one day as he chewed his pen, half in hunger and half despair,
Creaked the door of his garret den; Dick, his brother, was standing there.
Down on the pallet bed he sank, ashen his face, his voice a wail:
"Save me, brother! I've robbed the bank; to-morrow it's ruin, capture, gaol.
Yet there's a chance: I could to-day pay back the money, save our name;
You have a manuscript, they say, worth a thousand -- think, man! the shame. . . ."
Brown with his heart pain-pierced the while, with his stern, starved face,
 and his lips stone-pale,
Shuddered and smiled his twisted smile: "Brother, I guess you go to gaol."

While poor Brown in the leer of dawn wrestled with God for the sacred fire,
Came there a woman weak and wan, out of the mob, the murk, the mire;
Frail as a reed, a fellow ghost, weary with woe, with sorrowing;
Two pale souls in the legion lost; lo! Love bent with a tender wing,
Taught them a joy so deep, so true, it seemed that the whole-world fabric shook,
Thrilled and dissolved in radiant dew; then Brown made him a golden book,
Full of the faith that Life is good, that the earth is a dream divinely fair,
Lauding his gem of womanhood in many a lyric rich and rare;
Took it to Jones, who shook his head: "I will consider it," he said.

While he considered, Brown's wife lay clutched in the tentacles of pain;
Then came the doctor, grave and grey; spoke of decline, of nervous strain;
Hinted Egypt, the South of France -- Brown with terror was tiger-gripped.
Where was the money? What the chance? Pitiful God! . . . the manuscript!
A thousand dollars! his only hope! he gazed and gazed at the garret wall. . . .
Reached at last for the envelope, turned to his wife and told her all.
Told of his friend, his promise true; told like his very heart would break:
"Oh, my dearest! what shall I do? shall I not sell it for your sake?"
Ghostlike she lay, as still as doom; turned to the wall her weary head;
Icy-cold in the pallid gloom, silent as death . . . at last she said:
"Do! my husband? Keep your vow! Guard his secret and let me die. . . .
Oh, my dear, I must tell you now -- the women he loved and wronged was I;
Darling! I haven't long to live: I never told you -- forgive, forgive!"

For a long, long time Brown did not speak; sat bleak-browed in the wretched room;
Slowly a tear stole down his cheek, and he kissed her hand in the dismal gloom.
To break his oath, to brand her shame; his well-loved friend, his worshipped wife;
To keep his vow, to save her name, yet at the cost of what? Her life!
A moment's space did he hesitate, a moment of pain and dread and doubt,
Then he broke the seals, and, stern as fate, unfolded the sheets and spread them out. . . .
On his knees by her side he limply sank, peering amazed -- each page was blank.

(For oh, the supremest of our art are the stories we do not dare to tell,
Locked in the silence of the heart, for the awful records of Heav'n and Hell.)
Yet those two in the silence there, seemed less weariful than before.
Hark! a step on the garret stair, a postman knocks at the flimsy door.
"Registered letter!" Brown thrills with fear; opens, and reads, then bends above:
"Glorious tidings! Egypt, dear! The book is accepted -- life and love."

RIFTED mountains, clad with forests, girded round by gleaming pines, 
Where the morning, like an angel, robed in golden splendour shines; 
Shimmering mountains, throwing downward on the slopes a mazy glare 
Where the noonday glory sails through gulfs of calm and glittering air; 
Stately mountains, high and hoary, piled with blocks of amber cloud, 
Where the fading twilight lingers, when the winds are wailing loud; 

Grand old mountains, overbeetling brawling brooks and deep ravines, 
Where the moonshine, pale and mournful, flows on rocks and evergreens. 

Underneath these regal ridges - underneath the gnarly trees, 
I am sitting, lonely-hearted, listening to a lonely breeze! 
Sitting by an ancient casement, casting many a longing look 
Out across the hazy gloaming - out beyond the brawling brook! 
Over pathways leading skyward - over crag and swelling cone, 

Past long hillocks looking like to waves of ocean turned to stone; 
Yearning for a bliss unworldly, yearning for a brighter change, 
Yearning for the mystic Aidenn, built beyond this mountain range. 


Happy years, amongst these valleys, happy years have come and gone, 
And my youthful hopes and friendships withered with them one by one; 
Days and moments bearing onward many a bright and beauteous dream, 
All have passed me like to sunstreaks flying down a distant stream. 

Oh, the love returned by loved ones! Oh, the faces that I knew! 
Oh, the wrecks of fond affection! Oh, the hearts so warm and true! 
But their voices I remember, and a something lingers still, 
Like a dying echo roaming sadly round a far off hill. 


I would sojourn here contented, tranquil as I was of yore, 
And would never wish to clamber, seeking for an unknown shore; 
I have dwelt within this cottage twenty summers, and mine eyes 

Never wandered erewhile round in search of undiscovered skies; 
But a spirit sits beside me, veiled in robes of dazzling white, 
And a dear one's whisper wakens with the symphonies of night; 
And a low sad music cometh, borne along on windy wings, 
Like a strain familiar rising from a maze of slumbering springs. 


And the Spirit, by my window, speaketh to my restless soul, 
Telling of the clime she came from, where the silent moments roll; 

Telling of the bourne mysterious, where the sunny summers flee 
Cliffs and coasts, by man untrodden, ridging round a shipless sea. 

There the years of yore are blooming - there departed life-dreams dwell, 
There the faces beam with gladness that I loved in youth so well; 
There the songs of childhood travel, over wave-worn steep and strand - 
Over dale and upland stretching out behind this mountain land. 


``Lovely Being, can a mortal, weary of this changeless scene, 

Cross these cloudy summits to the land where man hath never been? 
Can he find a pathway leading through that wildering mass of pines, 
So that he shall reach the country where ethereal glory shines; 
So that he may glance at waters never dark with coming ships; 
Hearing round him gentle language floating from angelic lips; 
Casting off his earthly fetters, living there for evermore; 
All the blooms of Beauty near him, gleaming on that quiet shore? 


``Ere you quit this ancient casement, tell me, is it well to yearn 
For the evanescent visions, vanished never to return? 
Is it well that I should with to leave this dreary world behind, 
Seeking for your fair Utopia, which perchance I may not find? 
Passing through a gloomy forest, scaling steeps like prison walls, 
Where the scanty sunshine wavers and the moonlight seldom falls? 
Oh, the feelings re-awakened! Oh, the hopes of loftier range! 

Is it well, thou friendly Being, well to wish for such a change?'' 


But the Spirit answers nothing! and the dazzling mantle fades; 
And a wailing whisper wanders out from dismal seaside shades! 
``Lo, the trees are moaning loudly, underneath their hood-like shrouds, 
And the arch above us darkens, scarred with ragged thunder clouds!'' 
But the spirit answers nothing, and I linger all alone, 
Gazing through the moony vapours where the lovely Dream has flown; 

And my heart is beating sadly, and the music waxeth faint, 
Sailing up to holy Heaven, like the anthems of a Saint.

 Thou hast committed—
Fornication: but that was in another country,
And besides, the wench is dead.

The Jew of Malta.


I

AMONG the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do—
With “I have saved this afternoon for you”;
And four wax candles in the darkened room,
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,
An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.
We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and fingertips.
“So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.”
—And so the conversation slips
Among velleities and carefully caught regrets
Through attenuated tones of violins
Mingled with remote cornets
And begins.

“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
[For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!]
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you—
Without these friendships—life, what cauchemar!”

Among the windings of the violins
And the ariettes
Of cracked cornets
Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins
Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own,
Capricious monotone
That is at least one definite “false note.”
—Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,
Admire the monuments,
Discuss the late events,
Correct our watches by the public clocks.
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.

II

Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in his fingers while she talks.
“Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands”;
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
“You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.”
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
“Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the Spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all.”

The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
“I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.

You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.

But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey’s end.

I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...”

I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?
You will see me any morning in the park
Reading the comics and the sporting page.
Particularly I remark
An English countess goes upon the stage.
A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,
Another bank defaulter has confessed.
I keep my countenance,
I remain self-possessed
Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired
Reiterates some worn-out common song
With the smell of hyacinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?

III

The October night comes down; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.
“And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?
But that’s a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn.”
My smile falls heavily among the bric-à-brac.

“Perhaps you can write to me.”
My self-possession flares up for a second;
This is as I had reckoned.
“I have been wondering frequently of late
(But our beginnings never know our ends!)
Why we have not developed into friends.”
I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark
Suddenly, his expression in a glass.
My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark.

“For everybody said so, all our friends,
They all were sure our feelings would relate
So closely! I myself can hardly understand.
We must leave it now to fate.
You will write, at any rate.
Perhaps it is not too late.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends.”

And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression ... dance, dance
Like a dancing bear,
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance—

Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,
Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose;
Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand
With the smoke coming down above the housetops;
Doubtful, for a while
Not knowing what to feel or if I understand
Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon...
Would she not have the advantage, after all?
This music is successful with a “dying fall”
Now that we talk of dying—
And should I have the right to smile?

 Were I - who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -
A spirit free to choose for my own share
What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who is so proud of being rational.

His senses are too gross; and he'll contrive
A sixth, to contradict the other five;
And before certain instinct will prefer
Reason, which fifty times for one does err.
Reason, an ignis fatuus of the mind,
Which leaving light of nature, sense, behind,
Pathless and dangerous wand'ring ways it takes,
Through Error's fenny bogs and thorny brakes;
Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain
Mountains of whimsey's, heaped in his own brain;
Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down,
Into Doubt's boundless sea where, like to drown,
Books bear him up awhile, and make him try
To swim with bladders of Philosophy;
In hopes still to o'ertake the escaping light;
The vapour dances, in his dancing sight,
Till spent, it leaves him to eternal night.
Then old age and experience, hand in hand,
Lead him to death, make him to understand,
After a search so painful, and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong:

Huddled In dirt the reasoning engine lies,
Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.
Pride drew him in, as cheats their bubbles catch,
And made him venture; to be made a wretch.
His wisdom did has happiness destroy,
Aiming to know that world he should enjoy;
And Wit was his vain, frivolous pretence
Of pleasing others, at his own expense.
For wits are treated just like common whores,
First they're enjoyed, and then kicked out of doors;
The pleasure past, a threatening doubt remains,
That frights th' enjoyer with succeeding pains:
Women and men of wit are dangerous tools,
And ever fatal to admiring fools.
Pleasure allures, and when the fops escape,
'Tis not that they're beloved, but fortunate,
And therefore what they fear, at heart they hate:

But now, methinks some formal band and beard
Takes me to task; come on sir, I'm prepared:

"Then by your Favour, anything that's writ
Against this jibing, jingling knack called Wit
Likes me abundantly: but you take care
Upon this point not to be too severe.
Perhaps my Muse were fitter for this part,
For I profess I can be very smart
On Wit, which I abhor with all my heart;
I long to lash it in some sharp essay,
But your grand indiscretion bids me stay,
And turns my tide of ink another way.
What rage Torments in your degenerate mind,
To make you rail at reason, and mankind
Blessed glorious man! To whom alone kind heaven
An everlasting soul hath freely given;
Whom his great maker took such care to make,
That from himself he did the image take;
And this fair frame in shining reason dressed,
To dignify his nature above beast.
Reason, by whose aspiring influence
We take a flight beyond material sense,
Dive into mysteries, then soaring pierce
The flaming limits of the universe,
Search heaven and hell, Find out what's acted there,
And give the world true grounds of hope and fear."

Hold mighty man, I cry, all this we know,
From the pathetic pen of Ingelo;
From Patrlck's Pilgrim, Sibbes' Soliloquies,
And 'tis this very reason I despise,
This supernatural gift that makes a mite
Think he's an image of the infinite;
Comparing his short life, void of all rest,
To the eternal, and the ever-blessed.
This busy, pushing stirrer-up of doubt,
That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out;
Filling with frantic crowds of thinking fools
The reverend bedlam's, colleges and schools;
Borne on whose wings each heavy sot can pierce
The limits of the boundless universe;
So charming ointments make an old witch fly,
And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.
'Tis the exalted power whose business lies
In nonsense and impossibilities.
This made a whimsical philosopher
Before the spacious world his tub prefer,
And we have modern cloistered coxcombs, who
Retire to think 'cause they have nought to do.
But thoughts are given for action's government;
Where action ceases, thought's impertinent:
Our sphere of action is life's happiness,
And he that thinks beyond thinks like an ass.

Thus, whilst against false reasoning I inveigh.
I own right reason, which I would obey:
That reason which distinguishes by sense,
And gives us rules of good and ill from thence;
That bounds desires. with a reforming will
To keep 'em more in vigour, not to kill. -
Your reason hinders, mine helps to enjoy,
Renewing appetites yours would destroy.
My reason is my friend, yours is a cheat,
Hunger calls out, my reason bids me eat;
Perversely. yours your appetite does mock:
This asks for food, that answers, 'what's o'clock'
This plain distinction, sir, your doubt secures,
'Tis not true reason I despise, but yours.
Thus I think reason righted, but for man,
I'll ne'er recant, defend him if you can:
For all his pride, and his philosophy,
'Tis evident: beasts are in their own degree
As wise at least, and better far than he.

Those creatures are the wisest who attain. -
By surest means. the ends at which they aim.
If therefore Jowler finds and kills the hares,
Better than Meres supplies committee chairs;
Though one's a statesman, th' other but a hound,
Jowler in justice would be wiser found.
You see how far man's wisdom here extends.
Look next if human nature makes amends;
Whose principles are most generous and just,
- And to whose morals you would sooner trust:

Be judge yourself, I'll bring it to the test,
Which is the basest creature, man or beast
Birds feed on birds, beasts on each other prey,
But savage man alone does man betray:
Pressed by necessity; they kill for food,
Man undoes man, to do himself no good.
With teeth and claws, by nature armed, they hunt
Nature's allowance, to supply their want.
But man, with smiles, embraces. friendships. Praise,
Inhumanely his fellow's life betrays;
With voluntary pains works his distress,
Not through necessity, but wantonness.
For hunger or for love they bite, or tear,
Whilst wretched man is still in arms for fear.
For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid:
From fear, to fear, successively betrayed.
Base fear, the source whence his best passions came.
His boasted honour, and his dear-bought fame.
The lust of power, to whom he's such a slave,
And for the which alone he dares be brave;
To which his various projects are designed,
Which makes him generous, affable, and kind.
For which he takes such pains to be thought wise,
And screws his actions, in a forced disguise;
Leads a most tedious life in misery,
Under laborious, mean hypocrisy.
Look to the bottom of his vast design,
Wherein man's wisdom, power, and glory join:
The good he acts. the ill he does endure.
'Tis all from fear, to make himself secure.
Merely for safety after fame they thirst,
For all men would be cowards if they durst.
And honesty's against all common sense,
Men must be knaves, 'tis in their own defence.
Mankind's dishonest: if you think it fair
Among known cheats to play upon the square,
You'll be undone.
Nor can weak truth your reputation save,
The knaves will all agree to call you knave.
Wronged shall he live, insulted o'er, oppressed,
Who dares be less a villain than the rest.

Thus sir, you see what human nature craves,
Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves;
The difference lies, as far as I can see.
Not in the thing itself, but the degree;
And all the subject matter of debate
Is only, who's a knave of the first rate

All this with indignation have I hurled
At the pretending part of the proud world,
Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise,
False freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lies,
Over their fellow slaves to tyrannise.

But if in Court so just a man there be,
(In Court, a just man - yet unknown to me)
Who does his needful flattery direct
Not to oppress and ruin, but protect:
Since flattery, which way soever laid,
Is still a tax: on that unhappy trade.
If so upright a statesman you can find,
Whose passions bend to his unbiased mind,
Who does his arts and policies apply
To raise his country, not his family;
Nor while his pride owned avarice withstands,
Receives close bribes, from friends corrupted hands.

Is there a churchman who on God relies
Whose life, his faith and doctrine justifies
Not one blown up, with vain prelatic pride,
Who for reproofs of sins does man deride;
Whose envious heart makes preaching a pretence
With his obstreperous, saucy eloquence,
To chide at kings, and rail at men of sense;
Who from his pulpit vents more peevlsh lies,
More bitter railings, scandals, calumnies,
Than at a gossiping are thrown about
When the good wives get drunk, and then fall out.
None of that sensual tribe, whose talents lie
In avarice, pride, sloth, and gluttony.
Who hunt good livings; but abhor good lives,
Whose lust exalted, to that height arrives,
They act adultery with their own wives.
And ere a score of years completed be,
Can from the loftiest pulpit proudly see,
Half a large parish their own progeny.
Nor doting bishop, who would be adored
For domineering at the Council board;

A greater fop, in business at fourscore,
Fonder of serious toys, affected more,
Than the gay, glittering fool at twenty proves,
With all his noise, his tawdry clothes and loves.
But a meek, humble man, of honest sense,
Who preaching peace does practise continence;
Whose pious life's a proof he does believe
Mysterious truths which no man can conceive.

If upon Earth there dwell such god-like men,
I'll here recant my paradox to them,
Adores those shrines of virtue, homage pay,
And with the rabble world their laws obey.

If such there are, yet grant me this at least,
Man differs more from man than man from beast.

 'Twas at that hour of beauty when the setting sun
squandereth his cloudy bed with rosy hues, to flood
his lov'd works as in turn he biddeth them Good-night;
and all the towers and temples and mansions of men
face him in bright farewell, ere they creep from their pomp
naked beneath the darkness;- while to mortal eyes
'tis given, ifso they close not of fatigue, nor strain
at lamplit tasks-'tis given, as for a royal boon
to beggarly outcasts in homeless vigil, to watch
where uncurtain's behind the great windows of space
Heav'n's jewel'd company circleth unapproachably-
'Twas at sunset that I, fleeing to hide my soul
in refuge of beauty from a mortal distress,
walk'd alone with the Muse in her garden of thought,
discoursing at liberty with the mazy dreams
that came wavering pertinaciously about me; as when
the small bats, issued from their hangings, flitter o'erhead
thru' the summer twilight, with thin cries to and fro
hunting in muffled flight atween the stars and flowers.
Then fell I in strange delusion, illusion strange to tell;
for as a man who lyeth fast asleep in his bed
may dream he waketh, and that he walketh upright
pursuing some endeavour in full conscience-so 'twas
with me; but contrawise; for being in truth awake
methought I slept and dreamt; and in thatt dream methought
I was telling a dream; nor telling was I as one
who, truly awaked from a true sleep, thinketh to tell
his dream to a friend, but for his scant remembrances
findeth no token of speech-it was not so with me;
for my tale was my dream and my dream the telling,
and I remember wondring the while I told it
how I told it so tellingly. And yet now 'twould seem
that Reason inveighed me with her old orderings;
as once when she took thought to adjust theology,
peopling the inane that vex'd her between God and man
with a hierarchy of angels; like those asteroids
wherewith she later fill'd the gap 'twixt Jove and Mars.
Verily by Beauty it is that we come as WISDOM,
yet not by Reason at Beauty; and now with many words
pleasing myself betimes I am fearing lest in the end
I play the tedious orator who maundereth on
for lack of heart to make an end of his nothings.
Wherefor as when a runner who hath run his round
handeth his staff away, and is glad of his rest,
here break I off, knowing the goal was not for me
the while I ran on telling of what cannot be told.

For not the Muse herself can tell of Goddes love;
which cometh to the child from the Mother's embrace,
an Idea spacious as the starry firmament's
inescapable infinity of radiant gaze,
that fadeth only as it outpasseth mortal sight:
and this direct contact is 't with eternities,
this springtide miracle of the soul's nativity
that oft hath set philosophers adrift in dream;
which thing Christ taught, when he set up a little child
to teach his first Apostles and to accuse their pride,
saying, 'Unless ye shall receive it as a child,
ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.'
So thru'out all his young mental apprenticehood
the child of very simplicity, and in the grace
and beauteous attitude of infantine wonder,
is apt to absorb Ideas in primal purity,
and by the assimilation of thatt immortal food
may build immortal life; but ever with the growth
of understanding, as the sensible images
are more and more corrupt, troubled by questioning thought,
or with vainglory alloy'd, 'tis like enought the boy
in prospect of his manhood wil hav cast to th' winds
his Baptism with his Babyhood; nor might he escape
the fall of Ev'ryman, did not a second call
of nature's Love await him to confirm his Faith
or to revoke him if he is whollylapsed therefrom.
And so mighty is this second vision, which cometh
in puberty of body and adolescence of mind
that, forgetting his Mother, he calleth it 'first Love';
for it mocketh at suasion or stubbornness of heart,
as the oceantide of the omnipotent Pleasur of God,
flushing all avenues of life, and unawares
by thousandfold approach forestalling its full flood
with divination of the secret contacts of Love,--
of faintest ecstasies aslumber in Nature's calm,
like thought in a closed book, where some poet long since
sang his throbbing passion to immortal sleep-with coy
tenderness delicat as the shifting hues
that sanctify the silent dawn with wonder-gleams,
whose evanescence is the seal of their glory,
consumed in self-becoming of eternity;
til every moment as it flyeth, cryeth 'Seize!
Seize me ere I die! I am the Life of Life.'
'Tis thus by near approach to an eternal presence
man's heart with divine furor kindled and possess'd
falleth in blind surrender; and finding therewithal
in fullest devotion the full reconcilement
betwixt his animal and spiritual desires,
such welcome hour of bliss standeth for certain pledge
of happiness perdurable: and coud he sustain
this great enthusiasm, then the unbounded promise
would keep fulfilment; since the marriage of true minds
is thatt once fabled garden, amidst of which was set
the single Tree that bore such med'cinable fruit
that if man ate thereof he should liv for ever.
Friendship is in loving rather than in being lov'd,
which is its mutual benediction and recompense;
and tho' this be, and tho' love is from lovers learn'd,
it springeth none the less from the old essence of self.
No friendless man ('twas well said) can be truly himself;
what a man looketh for in his friend and findeth,
and loving self best, loveth better than himself,
is his own better self, his live lovable idea,
flowering by expansion in the loves of his life.
And in the nobility of our earthly friendships
we hav al grades of attainment, and the best may claim
perfection of kind; and so, since ther be many bonds
other than breed (friendships of lesser motiv, found
even in the brutes) and since our politick is based
on actual association of living men, 'twil come
that the spiritual idea of Friendship, the huge
vastidity of its essence, is fritter'd away
in observation of the usual habits of men;
as happ'd with the great moralist, where his book saith
that ther can be no friendship betwixt God and man
because of their unlimited disparity.
From this dilemma of pagan thought, this poison of faith,
Man-soul made glad escape in the worship of Christ;
for his humanity is God's Personality,
and communion with him is the life of the soul.
Of which living ideas (when in the struggle of thought
harden'd by language they became symbols of faith)
Reason builded her maze, wherefrom none should escape,
wandering intent to map and learn her tortuous clews,
chanting their clerkly creed to the high-echoing stones
of their hand-fashion'd temple: but the Wind of heav'n
bloweth where it listeth, and Christ yet walketh the earth,
and talketh still as with those two disciples once 
on the road to Emmaus-where they walk and are sad;
whose vision of him then was his victory over death,
thatt resurrection which all his lovers should share,
who in loving him had learn'd the Ethick of happiness;
whereby they too should come where he was ascended
to reign over men's hearts in the Kingdom of God.
Our happiest earthly comradeships hold a foretaste
of the feast of salvation and by thatt virtue in them
provoke desire beyond them to out-reach and surmount
their humanity in some superhumanity
and ultimat perfection: which, howe'ever 'tis found
or strangeley imagin'd, answereth to the need of each
and pulleth him instinctivly as to a final cause.
Thus unto all who hav found their high ideal in Christ,
Christ is to them the essence discern'd or undeiscern'd
of all their human friendships; and each lover of him
and of his beauty must be as a bud on the Vine
and hav participation in him; for Goddes love
is unescapable as nature's environment,
which if a man ignore or think to thrust it off
he is the ill-natured fool that runneth blindly on death.
This Individualism is man's true Socialism.
This is the rife Idea whose spiritual beauty
multiplieth in communion to transcendant might.
This is thatt excelent way whereon if we wil walk
all things shall be added unto us-thatt Love which inspired
the wayward Visionary in his doctrinal ode
to the three christian Graces, the Church's first hymn
and only deathless athanasian creed,--the which
'except a man believe he cannot be saved.'
This is the endearing bond whereby Christ's company
yet holdeth together on the truth of his promise
that he spake of his grat pity and trust in man's love,
'Lo, I am with you always ev'n to the end of the world.'
Truly the Soul returneth the body's loving
where it hath won it...and God so loveth the world...
and in the fellowship of the friendship of Christ
God is seen as the very self-essence of love,
Creator and mover of all as activ Lover of all,
self-express'd in not-self, mind and body, mother and child,
'twixt lover and loved, God and man: but ONE ETERNAL
in the love of Beauty and in the selfhood of Love.

 Deep in th' abyss where frantic horror bides, 
In thickest mists of vapours fell,
Where wily Serpents hissing glare
And the dark Demon of Revenge resides,
At midnight's murky hour
Thy origin began: 
Rapacious MALICE was thy sire;
Thy Dam the sullen witch, Despair;
Thy Nurse, insatiate Ire. 
The FATES conspir'd their ills to twine,
About thy heart's infected shrine;
They gave thee each disastrous spell,
Each desolating pow'r,
To blast the fairest hopes of man. 

Soon as thy fatal birth was known, 
From her unhallow'd throne
With ghastly smile pale Hecate sprung; 
Thy hideous form the Sorc'ress press'd
With kindred fondness to her breast; 
Her haggard eye
Short forth a ray of transient joy, 
Whilst thro' th' infernal shades exulting clamours rung. 

Above thy fellow fiends thy tyrant hand
Grasp'd with resistless force supreme command: 
The dread terrific crowd
Before thy iron sceptre bow'd. 
Now, seated in thy ebon cave, 
Around thy throne relentless furies rave: 
A wreath of ever-wounding thorn
Thy scowling brows encompass round, 
Thy heart by knawing Vultures torn, 
Thy meagre limbs with deathless scorpions bound. 
Thy black associates, torpid IGNORANCE, 
And pining JEALOUSY­with eye askance,
With savage rapture execute thy will, 
And strew the paths of life with every torturing ill 

Nor can the sainted dead escape thy rage; 
Thy vengeance haunts the silent grave, 
Thy taunts insult the ashes of the brave; 
While proud AMBITION weeps thy rancour to assuage. 
The laurels round the POET's bust, 
Twin'd by the liberal hand of Taste, 
By thy malignant grasp defac'd, 
Fade to their native dust: 
Thy ever-watchful eye no labour tires, 
Beneath thy venom'd touch the angel TRUTH expires. 

When in thy petrifying car
Thy scaly dragons waft thy form, 
Then, swifter, deadlier far 
Than the keen lightning's lance, 
That wings its way across the yelling storm, 
Thy barbed shafts fly whizzing round, 
While every with'ring glance
Inflicts a cureless wound. 

Thy giant arm with pond'rous blow
Hurls genius from her glorious height, 
Bends the fair front of Virtue low, 
And meanly pilfers every pure delight. 
Thy hollow voice the sense appalls, 
Thy vigilance the mind enthralls; 
Rest hast thou none,­by night, by day, 
Thy jealous ardour seeks for prey­
Nought can restrain thy swift career; 
Thy smile derides the suff'rer's wrongs; 
Thy tongue the sland'rers tale prolongs; 
Thy thirst imbibes the victim's tear; 
Thy breast recoils from friendship's flame; 
Sick'ning thou hear'st the trump of Fame; 
Worth gives to thee, the direst pang; 
The Lover's rapture wounds thy heart, 
The proudest efforts of prolific art 
Shrink from thy poisonous fang. 

In vain the Sculptor's lab'ring hand 
Calls fine proportion from the Parian stone; 
In vain the Minstrel's chords command
The soft vibrations of seraphic tone; 
For swift thy violating arm 
Tears from perfection ev'ry charm; 
Nor rosy YOUTH, nor BEAUTY's smiles
Thy unrelenting rage beguiles, 
Thy breath contaminates the fairest name, 
And binds the guiltless brow with ever-blist'ring shame.

 In vain, fair Maid, you ask in vain,
My pen should try th' advent'rous strain,
And following truth's unalter'd law,
Attempt your character to draw.
I own indeed, that generous mind
That weeps the woes of human kind,
That heart by friendship's charms inspired,
That soul with sprightly fancy fired,
The air of life, the vivid eye,
The flowing wit, the keen reply--
To paint these beauties as they shine,
Might ask a nobler pen than mine.


Yet what sure strokes can draw the Fair,
Who vary, like the fleeting air,
Like willows bending to the force,
Where'er the gales direct their course,
Opposed to no misfortune's power,
And changing with the changing hour.
Now gaily sporting on the plain,
They charm the grove with pleasing strain;
Anon disturb'd, they know not why,
The sad tear trembles in their eye:
Led through vain life's uncertain dance,
The dupes of whim, the slaves of chance.


From me, not famed for much goodnature,
Expect not compliment, but satire;
To draw your picture quite unable,
Instead of fact accept a Fable.


One morn, in Æsop's noisy time,
When all things talk'd, and talk'd in rhyme,
A cloud exhaled by vernal beams
Rose curling o'er the glassy streams.
The dawn her orient blushes spread,
And tinged its lucid skirts with red,
Wide waved its folds with glitt'ring dies,
And gaily streak'd the eastern skies;
Beneath, illumed with rising day,
The sea's broad mirror floating lay.
Pleased, o'er the wave it hung in air,
Survey'd its glittering glories there,
And fancied, dress'd in gorgeous show,
Itself the brightest thing below:
For clouds could raise the vaunting strain,
And not the fair alone were vain.


Yet well it knew, howe'er array'd,
That beauty, e'en in clouds, might fade,
That nothing sure its charms could boast
Above the loveliest earthly toast;
And so, like them, in early dawn
Resolved its picture should be drawn,
That when old age with length'ning day
Should brush the vivid rose away,
The world should from the portrait own
Beyond all clouds how bright it shone.


Hard by, a painter raised his stage,
Far famed, the Copley[1] of his age.
So just a form his colours drew,
Each eye the perfect semblance knew;
Yet still on every blooming face
He pour'd the pencil's flowing grace;
Each critic praised the artist rare,
Who drew so like, and yet so fair.


To him, high floating in the sky
Th' elated Cloud advanced t' apply.
The painter soon his colours brought,
The Cloud then sat, the artist wrought;
Survey'd her form, with flatt'ring strictures,
Just as when ladies sit for pictures,
Declared "whatever art can do,
My utmost skill shall try for you:
But sure those strong and golden dies
Dipp'd in the radiance of the skies,
Those folds of gay celestial dress,
No mortal colours can express.
Not spread triumphal o'er the plain,
The rainbow boasts so fair a train,
Nor e'en the morning sun so bright,
Who robes his face in heav'nly light.
To view that form of angel make,
Again Ixion would mistake,[2]
And justly deem so fair a prize,
The sovereign Mistress of the skies,"


He said, and drew a mazy line,
With crimson touch his pencils shine,
The mingling colours sweetly fade,
And justly temper light and shade.


He look'd; the swelling Cloud on high
With wider circuit spread the sky,
Stretch'd to the sun an ampler train,
And pour'd new glories on the main.
As quick, effacing every ground,
His pencil swept the canvas round,
And o'er its field, with magic art,
Call'd forth new forms in every part.


But now the sun, with rising ray,
Advanced with speed his early way;
Each colour takes a differing die,
The orange glows, the purples fly.
The artist views the alter'd sight,
And varies with the varying light;
In vain! a sudden gust arose,
New folds ascend, new shades disclose,
And sailing on with swifter pace,
The Cloud displays another face.
In vain the painter, vex'd at heart,
Tried all the wonders of his art;
In vain he begg'd, her form to grace,
One moment she would keep her place:
For, "changing thus with every gale,
Now gay with light, with gloom now pale,
Now high in air with gorgeous train,
Now settling on the darken'd main,
With looks more various than the moon;
A French coquette were drawn as soon."


He spoke; again the air was mild,
The Cloud with opening radiance smiled;
With canvas new his art he tries,
Anew he joins the glitt'ring dies;
Th' admiring Cloud with pride beheld
Her image deck the pictured field,
And colours half-complete adorn
The splendor of the painted morn.


When lo, the stormy winds arise,
Deep gloom invests the changing skies;
The sounding tempest shakes the plain,
And lifts in billowy surge the main.
The Cloud's gay dies in darkness fade,
Its folds condense in thicker shade,
And borne by rushing blasts, its form
With lowering vapour joins the storm.

 PALE GODDESS of the witching hour;
Blest Contemplation's placid friend; 
Oft in my solitary bow'r,
I mark thy lucid beam
From thy crystal car descend,
Whitening the spangled heath, and limpid sapphire stream. 

And oft, amidst the shades of night
I court thy undulating light;
When Fairies dance around the verdant ring,
Or frisk beside the bubbling spring,
When the thoughtless SHEPHERD'S song
Echoes thro' the silent air,
As he pens his fleecy care,
Or plods with saunt'ring gait, the dewy meads along. 

CHASTE ORB! as thro' the vaulted sky
Feath'ry clouds transparent sail; 
When thy languid, weeping eye,
Sheds its soft tears upon the painted vale; 
As I ponder o'er the floods,
Or tread with listless step, th'embow'ring woods,
O, let thy transitory beam,
Soothe my sad mind, with FANCY'S aëry dream. 

Wrapt in REFLECTION, let me trace 
O'er the vast ethereal space, 
Stars, whose twinkling fires illume 
Dark-brow'd NIGHT'S obtrusive gloom; 
Where across the concave wide; 
Flaming METEORS swiftly glide; 
Or along the milky way, 
Vapours shoot a silvery ray;
And as I mark, thy faint reclining head, 
Sinking on Ocean's pearly bed;
Let REASON tell my soul, thus all things fade. 

The Seasons change, the "garish SUN"
When Day's burning car hath run
Its fiery course, no more we view,
While o'er the mountain's golden head,
Streak'd with tints of crimson hue,
Twilight's filmy curtains spread,
Stealing o'er Nature's face, a desolating shade. 

Yon musky FLOW'R, that scents the earth;
The SOD, that gave its odours birth; 
The ROCK, that breaks the torrent's force; 
The VALE, that owns its wand'ring course; 
The woodlands where the vocal throng 
Trill the wild melodious song; 
Thirsty desarts, sands that glow, 
Mountains, cap'd with flaky snow; 
Luxuriant groves, enamell'd fields,
All, all, prolific Nature yields,
Alike shall end; the sensate HEART,
With all its passions, all its fire,
Touch'd by FATE'S unerring dart,
Shall feel its vital strength expire;
Those eyes, that beam with FRIENDSHIP'S ray,
And glance ineffable delight,
Shall shrink from LIFE'S translucid day, 
And close their fainting orbs, in DEATH'S impervious night. 

Then what remains for mortal pow'r;
But TIME'S dull journey to beguile;
To deck with joy, the winged hour,
To meet its sorrows with a patient smile; 
And when the toilsome pilgrimage shall end, 
To greet the tyrant, as a welcome friend.

 SHE will not sleep, for fear of dreams, 
But, rising, quits her restless bed, 
And walks where some beclouded beams 
Of moonlight through the hall are shed.

Obedient to the goad of grief, 
Her steps, now fast, now lingering slow, 
In varying motion seek relief 
From the Eumenides of woe.

Wringing her hands, at intervals­ 
But long as mute as phantom dim­ 
She glides along the dusky walls, 
Under the black oak rafters, grim.

The close air of the grated tower 
Stifles a heart that scarce can beat, 
And, though so late and lone the hour, 
Forth pass her wandering, faltering feet;

And on the pavement, spread before 
The long front of the mansion grey, 
Her steps imprint the night-frost hoar, 
Which pale on grass and granite lay.

Not long she stayed where misty moon 
And shimmering stars could on her look, 
But through the garden arch-way, soon 
Her strange and gloomy path she took.

Some firs, coeval with the tower, 
Their straight black boughs stretched o'er her head, 
Unseen, beneath this sable bower, 
Rustled her dress and rapid tread. 

There was an alcove in that shade, 
Screening a rustic-seat and stand; 
Weary she sat her down and laid 
Her hot brow on her burning hand.

To solitude and to the night, 
Some words she now, in murmurs, said; 
And, trickling through her fingers white, 
Some tears of misery she shed.

' God help me, in my grievous need, 
God help me, in my inward pain; 
Which cannot ask for pity's meed, 
Which has no license to complain;

Which must be borne, yet who can bear, 
Hours long, days long, a constant weight­ 
The yoke of absolute despair, 
A suffering wholly desolate ?

Who can for ever crush the heart, 
Restrain its throbbing, curb its life ? 
Dissemble truth with ceaseless art, 
With outward calm, mask inward strife ?'

She waited­as for some reply;
The still and cloudy night gave none; 
Erelong, with deep-drawn, trembling sigh, 
Her heavy plaint again begun. 

' Unloved­I love; unwept­I weep; 
Grief I restrain­hope I repress: 
Vain is this anguish­fixed and deep; 
Vainer, desires and dreams of bliss.

My love awakes no love again, 
My tears collect, and fall unfelt; 
My sorrow touches none with pain, 
My humble hopes to nothing melt.

For me the universe is dumb, 
Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly blind; 
Life I must bound, existence sum 
In the strait limits of one mind;

That mind my own. Oh ! narrow cell; 
Dark­imageless­a living tomb ! 
There must I sleep, there wake and dwell 
Content, with palsy, pain, and gloom.'

Again she paused; a moan of pain, 
A stifled sob, alone was heard; 
Long silence followed­then again, 
Her voice the stagnant midnight stirred.

' Must it be so ? Is this my fate ?
Can I nor struggle, nor contend ?
And am I doomed for years to wait,
Watching death's lingering axe descend ? 

And when it falls, and when I die, 
What follows ? Vacant nothingness ? 
The blank of lost identity ? 
Erasure both of pain and bliss ?

I've heard of heaven­I would believe; 
For if this earth indeed be all, 
Who longest lives may deepest grieve, 
Most blest, whom sorrows soonest call.

Oh ! leaving disappointment here, 
Will man find hope on yonder coast ? 
Hope, which, on earth, shines never clear, 
And oft in clouds is wholly lost.

Will he hope's source of light behold, 
Fruition's spring, where doubts expire, 
And drink, in waves of living gold, 
Contentment, full, for long desire ?

Will he find bliss, which here he dreamed ? 
Rest, which was weariness on earth ? 
Knowledge, which, if o'er life it beamed, 
Served but to prove it void of worth ?

Will he find love without lust's leaven, 
Love fearless, tearless, perfect, pure, 
To all with equal bounty given, 
In all, unfeigned, unfailing, sure ? 

Will he, from penal sufferings free, 
Released from shroud and wormy clod, 
All calm and glorious, rise and see 
Creation's Sire­Existence' God ?

Then, glancing back on Time's brief woes, 
Will he behold them, fading, fly; 
Swept from Eternity's repose, 
Like sullying cloud, from pure blue sky ?

If so­endure, my weary frame; 
And when thy anguish strikes too deep, 
And when all troubled burns life's flame,
Think of the quiet, final sleep;

Think of the glorious waking-hour, 
Which will not dawn on grief and tears, 
But on a ransomed spirit's power, 
Certain, and free from mortal fears.

Seek now thy couch, and lie till morn, 
Then from thy chamber, calm, descend, 
With mind nor tossed, nor anguish-torn, 
But tranquil, fixed, to wait the end.

And when thy opening eyes shall see
Mementos, on the chamber wall,
Of one who has forgotten thee,
Shed not the tear of acrid gall. 

The tear which, welling from the heart, 
Burns where its drop corrosive falls, 
And makes each nerve, in torture, start, 
At feelings it too well recalls:

When the sweet hope of being loved, 
Threw Eden sunshine on life's way; 
When every sense and feeling proved 
Expectancy of brightest day.

When the hand trembled to receive 
A thrilling clasp, which seemed so near, 
And the heart ventured to believe,
Another heart esteemed it dear.

When words, half love, all tenderness, 
Were hourly heard, as hourly spoken, 
When the long, sunny days of bliss, 
Only by moonlight nights were broken.

Till drop by drop, the cup of joy 
Filled full, with purple light, was glowing, 
And Faith, which watched it, sparkling high, 
Still never dreamt the overflowing.

It fell not with a sudden crashing, 
It poured not out like open sluice; 
No, sparkling still, and redly flashing, 
Drained, drop by drop, the generous juice. 

I saw it sink, and strove to taste it, 
My eager lips approached the brim; 
The movement only seemed to waste it, 
It sank to dregs, all harsh and dim.

These I have drank, and they for ever 
Have poisoned life and love for me; 
A draught from Sodom's lake could never 
More fiery, salt, and bitter, be.

Oh ! Love was all a thin illusion; 
Joy, but the desert's flying stream; 
And, glancing back on long delusion,
My memory grasps a hollow dream.

Yet, whence that wondrous change of feeling, 
I never knew, and cannot learn, 
Nor why my lover's eye, congealing, 
Grew cold, and clouded, proud, and stern.

Nor wherefore, friendship's forms forgetting, 
He careless left, and cool withdrew; 
Nor spoke of grief, nor fond regretting, 
Nor even one glance of comfort threw.

And neither word nor token sending,
Of kindness, since the parting day,
His course, for distant regions bending,
Went, self-contained and calm, away. 

Oh, bitter, blighting, keen sensation, 
Which will not weaken, cannot die, 
Hasten thy work of desolation, 
And let my tortured spirit fly !

Vain as the passing gale, my crying; 
Though lightning-struck, I must live on; 
I know, at heart, there is no dying 
Of love, and ruined hope, alone.

Still strong, and young, and warm with vigour, 
Though scathed, I long shall greenly grow, 
And many a storm of wildest rigour 
Shall yet break o'er my shivered bough.

Rebellious now to blank inertion, 
My unused strength demands a task; 
Travel, and toil, and full exertion, 
Are the last, only boon I ask.

Whence, then, this vain and barren dreaming 
Of death, and dubious life to come ? 
I see a nearer beacon gleaming 
Over dejection's sea of gloom.

The very wildness of my sorrow 
Tells me I yet have innate force; 
My track of life has been too narrow, 
Effort shall trace a broader course. 

The world is not in yonder tower, 
Earth is not prisoned in that room, 
'Mid whose dark pannels, hour by hour, 
I've sat, the slave and prey of gloom.

One feeling­turned to utter anguish, 
Is not my being's only aim; 
When, lorn and loveless, life will languish, 
But courage can revive the flame.

He, when he left me, went a roving
To sunny climes, beyond the sea; 
And I, the weight of woe removing, 
Am free and fetterless as he.

New scenes, new language, skies less clouded,
May once more wake the wish to live; 
Strange, foreign towns, astir, and crowded, 
New pictures to the mind may give.

New forms and faces, passing ever, 
May hide the one I still retain, 
Defined, and fixed, and fading never, 
Stamped deep on vision, heart, and brain.

And we might meet­time may have changed him;
Chance may reveal the mystery,
The secret influence which estranged him;
Love may restore him yet to me. 

False thought­false hope­in scorn be banished ! 
I am not loved­nor loved have been; 
Recall not, then, the dreams scarce vanished, 
Traitors ! mislead me not again !

To words like yours I bid defiance, 
'Tis such my mental wreck have made; 
Of God alone, and self-reliance, 
I ask for solace­hope for aid.

Morn comes­and ere meridian glory
O'er these, my natal woods, shall smile, 
Both lonely wood and mansion hoary 
I'll leave behind, full many a mile.

 Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see 
him when he came, but didn't seem to miss him if he stayed away.

And cannot pleasures, while they last,
Be actual unless, when past,
They leave us shuddering and aghast,
With anguish smarting?
And cannot friends be firm and fast,
And yet bear parting?

And must I then, at Friendship's call,
Calmly resign the little all
(Trifling, I grant, it is and small)
I have of gladness,
And lend my being to the thrall
Of gloom and sadness?

And think you that I should be dumb,
And full DOLORUM OMNIUM,
Excepting when YOU choose to come
And share my dinner?
At other times be sour and glum
And daily thinner?

Must he then only live to weep,
Who'd prove his friendship true and deep
By day a lonely shadow creep,
At night-time languish,
Oft raising in his broken sleep
The moan of anguish?

The lover, if for certain days
His fair one be denied his gaze,
Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,
But, wiser wooer,
He spends the time in writing lays,
And posts them to her.

And if the verse flow free and fast,
Till even the poet is aghast,
A touching Valentine at last
The post shall carry,
When thirteen days are gone and past
Of February.

Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,
In desert waste or crowded street,
Perhaps before this week shall fleet,
Perhaps to-morrow.
I trust to find YOUR heart the seat
Of wasting sorrow.