Famous Friendship Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Friendship poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous friendship poems. These examples illustrate what a famous friendship poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Pope, Alexander
...n;
In all you speak, let Truth and Candor shine:
That not alone what to your Sense is due,
All may allow; but seek your Friendship too.
Be silent always when you doubt your Sense;
And speak, tho' sure, with seeming Diffidence:
Some positive persisting Fops we know,
Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so;
But you, with Pleasure own your Errors past,
An make each Day a Critick on the last.
'Tis not enough your Counsel still be true,
Blunt Truths more Mischief tha...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...nding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, especially the young men,
Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships—the gait they have of persons
who
never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,
The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, the copiousness and decision of their
phrenology,
The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fierceness when wrong’d,
The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their curiosity, good...Read more of this...
by
Pushkin, Alexander
...What's friendship? The hangover's faction,
The gratis talk of outrage,
Exchange by vanity, inaction,
Or bitter shame of patronage....Read more of this...
by
Thoreau, Henry David
...I think awhile of Love, and while I think,
Love is to me a world,
Sole meat and sweetest drink,
And close connecting link
Tween heaven and earth.
I only know it is, not how or why,
My greatest happiness;
However hard I try,
Not if I were to die,
Can I explain.
I fain would ask my friend how it can be,
But when the time arrives,
Then Lo...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...around the hearer's mind;
There he was stamp'd, in liking, or in hate,
If greeted once; however brief the date
That friendship, pity, or aversion knew,
Still there within the inmost thought he grew.
You could not penetrate his soul, but found
Despite your wonder, to your own he wound.
His presence haunted still; and from the breast
He forced an all-unwilling interest;
Vain was the struggle in that mental net,
His spirit seem'd to dare you to forget!
XX.Read more of this...
by
Dyke, Henry Van
...up the hill or down,
O'er rough or smooth, the journey will be joy:
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy,
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,
My heart will keep the courage of the quest,
And hope the road's last turn will be the best....Read more of this...
by
Brontë, Emily
...Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree --
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most contantly?
The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who wil call the wild-briar fair?
Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That when December ...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...weather’d the capes, the voyage done,)
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d,
As, fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.
12
Passage to more than India!
Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?
O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like these?
Disportest thou on waters such as these?
Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?
Then have thy bent unleash’d.
Pa...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...of women;)
O for the girl, my mate! O for the happiness with my mate!
O the young man as I pass! O I am sick after the friendship of him who, I fear, is
indifferent
to me.
O the streets of cities!
The flitting faces—the expressions, eyes, feet, costumes! O I cannot tell how welcome
they
are to me.
6
O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the coast!
O to continue and be employ’d there all my life!
O the briny and damp smell—the shore—th...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...
O I am wonderful!
I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish;
Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take
again.
That I walk up my stoop! I pause to consider if it really be;
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
To behold the day-break!
The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows;
The air tastes good to my palate.
Hefts ...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...nd ready hand,
Obedience to their chief's command;
A soul for every enterprise,
That never sees with terror's eyes;
Friendship for each, and faith to all,
And vengeance vow'd for those who fall,
Have made them fitting instruments
For more than ev'n my own intents.
And some — and I have studied all
Distinguish'd from the vulgar rank,
But chiefly to my council call
The wisdom of the cautious Frank —
And some to higher thoughts aspire,
The last of Lambro's patri...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...for him; to her he was
Even as a brother—but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honoured race.—It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?
Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew....Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...iding by mirror'd stems;
By lock and weir and isle, and many a spot
Of memoried pleasure, glad with strength and skill,
Friendship, good wine, and mirth, that serve not ill
The heavenly Muse, tho' she requite them not:
I would have life--thou saidst--all as this day,
Simple enjoyment calm in its excess,
With not a grief to cloud, and not a ray
Of passion overhot my peace to oppress;
With no ambition to reproach delay,
Nor rapture to disturb its happiness.
39
A man tha...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...ly finds
Quarrels will, spite of every endeavour--
The song of the Jubjub recurred to their minds,
And cemented their friendship for ever!
FIT VI.--THE BARRISTER'S DREAM.
Fit the Sixth.
THE BARRISTER'S DREAM.
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
But the Barrister, weary of proving in vain
That the Beaver's...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...lonius Tyrius, seem to be an attack on Gower, who
had given these tales in his book; whence Tyrwhitt concludes
that the friendship between the two poets suffered some
interruption in the latter part of their lives. Gower was not the
inventor of the story, which he found in old French romances,
and it is not improbable that Chaucer may have gone to the
same source as Gower, though the latter undoubtedly led the
way.
(Transcriber's note: later commentators have identifi...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...
Let man wear the fell of the lion. woman the fleece of the sheep.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
The selfish smiling fool. & the sullen frowning fool. shall be
both thought wise. that they may be a rod.
What is now proved was once, only imagin'd.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbet; watch the roots, the
lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits.
The cistern contains: the fountain overflows ...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...s vanish,
While from the back of the mount, others plunge wildly below.
Man still lives with the land in neighborly friendship united,
And round his sheltering roof calmly repose still his fields;
Trustingly climbs the vine high over the low-reaching window,
While round the cottage the tree circles its far-stretching boughs.
Happy race of the plain! Not yet awakened to freedom,
Thou and thy pastures with joy share in the limited law;
Bounded thy wishes all are by the ...Read more of this...
by
Arnold, Matthew
...ed of men,
Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen,
And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind.
Much he, whose friendship I not long since won,
That halting slave, who in Nicopolis
Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son
Cleared Rome of what most shamed him. But be his
My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul,
From first youth tested up to extreme old age,
Business could not make dull, nor passion wild;
Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole;
The mellow...Read more of this...
by
Montgomery, Lucy Maud
...Let those who will of friendship sing,
And to its guerdon grateful be,
But I a lyric garland bring
To crown thee, O, mine enemy!
Thanks, endless thanks, to thee I owe
For that my lifelong journey through
Thine honest hate has done for me
What love perchance had failed to do.
I had not scaled such weary heights
But that I held thy scorn in fear,
And never keenest lure migh...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...y passion or love's art --
In awful silence lips melt into one
And out of love to pieces bursts the heart.
And friendship here is impotent, and years
Of happiness sublime in fire aglow,
When soul is free and does not hear
The dulling of sweet passion, long and slow.
Those who are striving toward it are in fever,
But those that reach it struck with woe that lingers.
Now you have understood, why forever
My heart does not beat underneath your fingers.Read more of this...
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