Famous Just Friends Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Just Friends poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous just friends poems. These examples illustrate what a famous just friends poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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To Friends At Home

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 TO friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lost
The gracious old, the lovely young, to May
The fair, December the beloved,
These from my blue horizon and green isles,
These from this pinnacle of distances I,
The unforgetful, dedicate....Read more of this...

I Have Some Friends

by Robert William Service
 I have some friends, some worthy friends,
And worthy friends are rare:
These carpet slippers on my feet,
That padded leather chair;
This old and shabby dressing-gown,
So well the worse of wear.

I have some friends, some honest friends,
And honest friends are few;
My pipe of briar, my open fire,
A book that's not too new;
My bed so warm, the nights of storm
I love to listen...Read more of this...

Ballad of Dead Friends

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 As we the withered ferns 
By the roadway lying, 
Time, the jester, spurns 
All our prayers and prying -- 
All our tears and sighing, 
Sorrow, change, and woe -- 
All our where-and-whying 
For friends that come and go. 

Life awakes and burns, 
Age and death defying, 
Till at last it learns 
All but Love is dying; 
Love's the trade...Read more of this...

The Gardener XLIII: No My Friends

by Rabindranath Tagore
 No, my friends, I shall never be an
ascetic, whatever you may say.
I shall never be and ascetic if she
does not take the vow with me.
It is my firm resolve that if I 
cannot find a shady shelter and a 
companion for my penance, I shall
never turn ascetic.
No, my friends, I shall never leave
my hearth and home, and retire into
the...Read more of this...

My Friends Light

by Andrei Voznesensky
 I'm waiting for my friend. The gate's unlocked. 
 The banisters are lit so he can walk. 

 I'm waiting for my friend. The times are dull and tough. 
 Anticipation lightens our life. 

 He's driving down the Ring Road, at full speed, 
 the way I did it when he was in need. 

 He will arrive...Read more of this...

The False Friends

by Dorothy Parker
 They laid their hands upon my head,
They stroked my cheek and brow;
And time could heal a hurt, they said,
And time could dim a vow.

And they were pitiful and mild
Who whispered to me then,
"The heart that breaks in April, child,
Will mend in May again."

Oh, many a mended heart they knew.
So old they were, and wise.
And little did they have to...Read more of this...

Inscriptions for a Friends House

by Henry Van Dyke
 THE HOUSE

The cornerstone in Truth is laid,
The guardian walls of Honour made,
The roof of Faith is built above,
The fire upon the hearth is Love:
Though rains descend and loud winds call,
This happy house shall never fall.


THE DOORSTEAD

The lintel low enough to keep out pomp and pride:
The threshold high enough to turn deceit aside:
The doorband strong enough from robbers to defend:
This...Read more of this...

Are Friends Delight or Pain?

by Emily Dickinson
 Are Friends Delight or Pain?
Could Bounty but remain
Riches were good --

But if they only stay
Ampler to fly away
Riches are sad....Read more of this...

Dream Song 127: Again his friends death made the man sit still

by John Berryman
 Again, his friend's death made the man sit still
and freeze inside-”his daughter won first price-”
his wife scowled over at him-”
It seemed to be Hallowe'en.
His friend's death had been adjudged suicide,
which dangles a trail

longer than Henry's chill, longer than his loss
and longer than the letter that he wrote 
that day to the widow
to find out what the hell had happened...Read more of this...

A Man Young And Old: VII. The Friends Of His Youth

by William Butler Yeats
 Laughter not time destroyed my voice
And put that crack in it,
And when the moon's pot-bellied
I get a laughing fit,
For that old Madge comes down the lane,
A stone upon her breast,
And a cloak wrapped about the stone,
And she can get no rest
With singing hush and hush-a-bye;
She that has been wild
And barren as a breaking wave
Thinks that the stone's a child.

And...Read more of this...

Listen to me, O thou who hast not seen old friends

by Omar Khayyam
Listen to me, O thou who hast not seen old friends
[of experience]! Vex not thyself with this Wheel of
Heaven which has neither surface nor foundation: content
thyself with what thou hast and, as a peaceable spectator,
observe here below the various games to which men are
destined....Read more of this...

Sonnet XX: Fly Fly My Friends

by Sir Philip Sidney
 Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound; fly! 
See there that boy, that murthering boy I say, 
Who like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie, 
Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey. 

So tyrant he no fitter place could spy, 
Nor so fair level in so secret stay, 
As that sweet black which veils the...Read more of this...

Letters To Friends

by Barry Tebb
 I


Eddie Linden

Dear Eddie we’ve not met

Except upon the written page 

And at your age the wonder 

Is that you write at all

When so many have gone under 

Or been split asunder by narcissistic humours

Blunder following blunder

Barker and Graham, godfathering my verse

Bearing me cloud-handed to Haworth moor

From my chained metropolitan moorings,

O hyaline March morning with Leeds

At its thrusting best, the...Read more of this...

Cease, if ye are my friends, all vain discourse, and,

by Omar Khayyam
Cease, if ye are my friends, all vain discourse, and,
to relieve my mental pains pour out the wine. And
when to dust my frame returns, the self-same dust
collect and make it brick to stop some crevice in the
tavern wall....Read more of this...

Hiawathas Friends

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 Two good friends had Hiawatha, 
Singled out from all the others, 
Bound to him in closest union, 
And to whom he gave the right hand 
Of his heart, in joy and sorrow; 
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind.
Straight between them ran the pathway, 
Never grew the grass upon it; 
Singing birds, that utter falsehoods, 
Story-tellers, mischief-makers, 
Found...Read more of this...

My Friends

by Robert William Service
 The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;
And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief;
A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with pain and grief.

My feet were froze, and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray;
The little flesh that clung to my bones, you could punch it in holes...Read more of this...

The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends

by William Butler Yeats
 Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time's bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes....Read more of this...

On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour

by John Keats
 Give me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when 'tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half-discovered wings, and glances keen.
The while let music...Read more of this...

To My Friends

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Yes, my friends!--that happier times have been
Than the present, none can contravene;
That a race once lived of nobler worth;
And if ancient chronicles were dumb,
Countless stones in witness forth would come
From the deepest entrails of the earth.
But this highly-favored race has gone,
Gone forever to the realms of night.
We, we live! The moments are our own,
And the living judge the right.

Brighter...Read more of this...

On the Night of a Friends Wedding

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 If ever I am old, and all alone, 
I shall have killed one grief, at any rate; 
For then, thank God, I shall not have to wait 
Much longer for the sheaves that I have sown. 
The devil only knows what I have done,
But here I am, and here are six or eight 
Good friends, who most ingenuously prate...Read more of this...

Kindness to friends and foes 'tis well to show,

by Omar Khayyam
Kindness to friends and foes 'tis well to show,
No kindly heart can prove unkind, I trow:
Harshness will alienate a bosom friend,
And kindness reconcile a deadly foe....Read more of this...

Friends Departed

by Henry Vaughan
 They are all gone into the world of light! 
And I alone sit ling'ring here; 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 
And my sad thoughts doth clear. 

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove, 
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest 
After the sun's remove. 

I see them walking...Read more of this...

On The Death Of Friends In Childhood

by Donald Justice
 We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven
Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands
In games whose very names we have forgotten.
Come memory, let us seek them there in the shadows....Read more of this...

Soon Our Friends Perish

by Robert Louis Stevenson
 SOON our friends perish,
Soon all we cherish
Fades as days darken - goes as flowers go.
Soon in December
Over an ember,
Lonely we hearken, as loud winds blow....Read more of this...

Never in this false world on friends rely

by Omar Khayyam
Never in this false world on friends rely
(I give this counsel confidentially),
Put up with pain, and seek no antidote,
Endure your grief, and ask no sympathy!...Read more of this...

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