Famous Long Friendship Poems

Famous Long Friendship Poems. Long Friendship Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Friendship long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

 The squatter saw his pastures wide 
Decrease, as one by one 
The farmers moving to the west 
Selected on his run; 
Selectors took the water up 
And all the black soil round; 
The best grass-land the squatter had 
Was spoilt by Ross's Ground. 

Now many schemes to shift old Ross 
Had racked the squatter's brains, 
But Sandy had the stubborn blood 
Of Scotland in his veins; 
He held the land and fenced it in, 
He cleared and ploughed the soil, 
And year by year a richer crop 
Repaid him for his toil. 

Between the homes for many years 
The devil left his tracks: 
The squatter pounded Ross's stock, 
And Sandy pounded Black's. 
A well upon the lower run 
Was filled with earth and logs, 
And Black laid baits about the farm 
To poison Ross's dogs. 

It was, indeed, a deadly feud 
Of class and creed and race; 
But, yet, there was a Romeo 
And a Juliet in the case; 
And more than once across the flats, 
Beneath the Southern Cross, 
Young Robert Black was seen to ride 
With pretty Jenny Ross. 

One Christmas time, when months of drought 
Had parched the western creeks, 
The bush-fires started in the north...
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  XII. — EPISTLE TO ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF RUTLAND. That which, to boot with hell, is thought worth heaven, And for it, life, conscience, yea souls are given, Toils, by grave custom, up and down the court, To every squire, or groom, that will report Well or ill, only all the following year, Just to the weight their this day's presents bear ; While it makes huishers serviceable men,Of some grand peer, whose air doth make rejoice The fool that gave it ;  who will want and weep, When his proud patron's favors are asleep ; While thus it buys great grace, and hunts poor fame ; Runs between man and man ;  'tween dame, and dame ; Solders crack'd friendship ; makes love last a day ; Or perhaps less :  whilst gold bears all this sway, I, that have none to send you, send you verse.Than this our gilt, nor golden age can deem, When gold was made no weapon to cut throats, Or put to flight Astrea, when her ingóts Were yet unfound, and better placed in earth, Than here, to give pride fame, and peasants birth, But let this dross carry what price it will With noble...
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 Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in, 
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin, 
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp, 
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp; 
And they paint it so terrific it would fill one's soul with gloom -- 
But you know they're fond of writing about "corpses" and "the tomb". 
So, before they curse the bushland, they should let their fancy range, 
And take something for their livers, and be cheerful for a change. 
Now, for instance, Mr Lawson -- well, of course, we almost cried 
At the sorrowful description how his "little 'Arvie" died, 
And we lachrymosed in silence when "His Father's mate" was slain; 
Then he went and killed the father, and we had to weep again. 
Ben Duggan and Jack Denver, too, he caused them to expire, 
After which he cooked the gander of Jack Dunn, of Nevertire; 
And, no doubt, the bush is wretched if you judge it by the groan 
Of the sad and soulful poet with a graveyard of his own. 

And he spoke in terms prophetic of a revolution's heat, 
When the world should...
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 WHILE briers an’ woodbines budding green,
An’ paitricks scraichin loud at e’en,
An’ morning poussie whiddin seen,
 Inspire my muse,
This freedom, in an unknown frien’,
 I pray excuse.


On Fasten-e’en we had a rockin,
To ca’ the crack and weave our stockin;
And there was muckle fun and jokin,
 Ye need na doubt;
At length we had a hearty yokin
 At sang about.


There was ae sang, amang the rest,
Aboon them a’ it pleas’d me best,
That some kind husband had addrest
 To some sweet wife;
It thirl’d the heart-strings thro’ the breast,
 A’ to the life.


I’ve scarce heard ought describ’d sae weel,
What gen’rous, manly bosoms feel;
Thought I “Can this be Pope, or Steele,
 Or Beattie’s wark?”
They tauld me ’twas an odd kind chiel
 About Muirkirk.


It pat me fidgin-fain to hear’t,
An’ sae about him there I speir’t;
Then a’ that kent him round declar’d
 He had ingine;
That nane excell’d it, few cam near’t,
 It was sae fine:


That, set him to a pint of ale,
An’ either douce or merry tale,
Or rhymes an’ sangs he’d made himsel,
 Or witty catches—
’Tween Inverness an’ Teviotdale,
 He had few matches.


Then up I gat, an’ swoor an aith,
Tho’ I should pawn my pleugh an’ graith,
Or die a cadger pownie’s death,
 At some dyke-back,
A pint an’...
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 WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d,
And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form’d of various parts the various Man.


 Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics’ many-apron’d kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net:
The caput mortuum of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks th’ unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines;
Last, she sublimes th’ Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.


 The order’d system fair before her stood,
Nature, well pleas’d, pronounc’d it very good;
But ere she gave creating labour o’er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter,
Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch-alacrity and conscious glee,
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it),
She forms the thing and christens it—a Poet:
Creature, tho’ oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful...
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 In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.
All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number, weight and measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloak of knavery.
Shame is Pride's cloke.
Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the...
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 In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.
All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number, weight and measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloak of knavery.
Shame is Pride's cloke.
Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the...
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 TERRIFIC FIEND! thou Monster fell, 
Condemn'd in haunts profane to dwell, 
Why quit thy solitary Home, 
O'er wide Creation's paths to roam? 
Pale Tyrant of the timid Heart, 
Whose visionary spells can bind 
The strongest passions of the mind, 
Freezing Life's current with thy baneful Art. 

Nature recoils when thou art near, 
For round thy form all plagues are seen; 
Thine is the frantic tone, the sullen mien, 
The glance of petrifying fear, 
The haggard Brow, the low'ring Eye, 
The hollow Cheek, the smother'd Sigh, 
When thy usurping fangs assail, 
The sacred Bonds of Friendship fail. 
Meek-bosom'd Pity sues in vain; 
Imperious Sorrow spurns relief, 
Feeds on the luxury of Grief, 
Drinks the hot Tear, and hugs the galling Chain. 

AH! plunge no more thy ruthless dart, 
In the dark centre of the guilty Heart; 
The POW'R SUPREME, with pitying eye, 
Looks on the erring Child of Misery; 
MERCY arrests the wing of Time; 
To expiate the wretch's crime; 
Insulted HEAV'N consign'd thy brand 
To the first Murd'rer's crimson hand. 
Swift o'er the earth the Monster flew, 
And round th' ensanguin'd Poisons threw, 
By CONSCIENCE goaded­driven by FEAR, 
Till the meek Cherub HOPE subdued his fell career. 

Thy Reign...
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 I've known ere now an interfering branch
Of alder catch my lifted ax behind me.
But that was in the woods, to hold my hand
From striking at another alder's roots,
And that was, as I say, an alder branch.
This was a man, Baptiste, who stole one day
Behind me on the snow in my own yard
Where I was working at the chopping block,
And cutting nothing not cut down already.
He caught my ax expertly on the rise,
When all my strength put forth was in his favor,
Held it a moment where it was, to calm me,
Then took it from me — and I let him take it.
I didn't know him well enough to know
What it was all about. There might be something
He had in mind to say to a bad neighbor
He might prefer to say to him disarmed.
But all he had to tell me in French-English
Was what he thought of— not me, but my ax;
Me only as I took my ax to heart.
It was the bad ax-helve some one had sold me —
“Made on machine,' he said, plowing the grain
With a thick thumbnail to show how it ran
Across the handle's long-drawn serpentine,
Like the two strokes across a dollar sign.
“You give her 'one good crack, she's...
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 THE TURN
Brave infant of Saguntum, clear
Thy coming forth in that great year,
When the prodigious Hannibal did crown
His rage with razing your immortal town.
Thou looking then about,
Ere thou wert half got out,
Wise child, didst hastily return,
And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
How summ'd a circle didst thou leave mankind
Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!

THE COUNTER-TURN

Did wiser nature draw thee back,
From out the horror of that sack;
Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,
Lay trampled on? The deeds of death and night
Urg'd, hurried forth, and hurl'd
Upon th' affrighted world;
Sword, fire and famine with fell fury met,
And all on utmost ruin set:
As, could they but life's miseries foresee,
No doubt all infants would return like thee.

THE STAND

For what is life, if measur'd by the space,
Not by the act?
Or masked man, if valu'd by his face,
Above his fact?
Here's one outliv'd his peers
And told forth fourscore years:
He vexed time, and busied the whole state;
Troubled both foes and friends;
But ever to no ends:
What did this stirrer but die late?
How well at twenty had he fall'n or stood!
For three of his four score he did no good.

THE TURN

He enter'd well, by virtuous parts
Got up, and thriv'd with honest arts;
He purchas'd friends, and fame, and honours...
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 1
 COME, my tan-faced children, 
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; 
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers! 

2
 For we cannot tarry here, 
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers! 

3
 O you youths, western youths, 
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, 
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O
 pioneers! 

4
 Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas? 
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers! 

5
 All the past we leave behind; 
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, 
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!

6
 We detachments steady throwing, 
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, 
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!


7
 We primeval forests felling, 
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within;
We the surface...
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 THOU art confused, my beloved, at, seeing the thousandfold 
union

Shown in this flowery troop, over the garden dispers'd;
any a name dost thou hear assign'd; one after another

Falls on thy list'ning ear, with a barbarian sound.
None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;

Therefore, a mystical law is by the chorus proclaim'd;
Yes, a sacred enigma! Oh, dearest friend, could I only

Happily teach thee the word, which may the mystery 
solve!
Closely observe how the plant, by little and little progressing,

Step by step guided on, changeth to blossom and 
fruit!
First from the seed it unravels itself, as soon as the silent

Fruit-bearing womb of the earth kindly allows Its 
escape,
And to the charms of the light, the holy, the ever-in-motion,

Trusteth the delicate leaves, feebly beginning 
to shoot.
Simply slumber'd the force in the seed; a germ of the future,

Peacefully lock'd in itself, 'neath the integument 
lay,
Leaf and root, and bud, still void of colour, and shapeless;

Thus doth the kernel, while dry, cover that motionless 
life.
Upward then strives it to swell, in gentle moisture confiding,

And, from the night where it dwelt, straightway 
ascendeth to light.
Yet still simple remaineth its figure, when first it appeareth;

And 'tis a token like this, points out the child 
'mid...
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 I.
HEre take no Care, take here no Care, my Muse,
 Nor ought of Art or Labour use:
 But let thy Lines rude and unpolisht go,
Nor Equal be their Feet, nor Num'rous let them flow.
 The ruggeder my Measures run when read,
They'l livelier paint th'unequal Paths fond Mortals tread.
 Who when th'are tempted by the smooth Ascents,
 Which flatt'ring Hope presents,
 Briskly they clime, and Great Things undertake;
 But Fatal Voyages, alas, they make:
 For 'tis not long before their Feet,
 Inextricable Mazes meet,
 Perplexing Doubts obstruct their Way,
 Mountains with-stand them of Dismay;
 Or to the Brink of black Dispaire them lead,
 Where's nought their Ruine to impede, 

 In vain for Aide they then to Reason call,
 Their Senses dazle, and their Heads turn round,
 The sight does all their Pow'rs confound,
And headlong down the horrid Precipice they fall:
 Where storms of Sighs for ever blow,
 Where raped streams of Tears do flow,
 Which drown them in a Briny Floud.
My Muse pronounce aloud, there's nothing Good,
 Nought that the World can show,
 Nought that it can bestow. 

II.
 Not boundless Heaps of its admired Clay,
 Ah, too successful to betray,
 When spread in our fraile Vertues way:
 For...
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 As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.
Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp was strung,
Without one word of Cupid's darts,
Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts;
With friendship and esteem possest,
I ne'er admitted Love a guest.
In all the habitudes of life,
The friend, the mistress, and the wife,
Variety we still pursue,
In pleasure seek for something new;
Or else, comparing with the rest,
Take comfort that our own is best;
The best we value by the worst,
As tradesmen show their trash at first;
But his pursuits are at an end,
Whom Stella chooses for a friend.
A poet starving in a garret,
Invokes his mistress and his Muse,
And stays at home for want of shoes:
Should but his Muse descending drop
A slice of bread and mutton-chop;
Or kindly, when his credit's out,
Surprise him with a pint of stout;
Or patch his broken stocking soles;
Or send him in a peck of coals;
Exalted in his mighty mind,
He flies and leaves the stars behind;
Counts all his labours amply paid,
Adores her for the timely aid.
Or, should...
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 The Beaver's Lesson 

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. 

Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan 
For making a separate sally; 
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man, 
A dismal and desolate valley. 


But the very same plan to the Beaver occurred: 
It had chosen the very same place: 
Yet neither betrayed, by a sign or a word, 
The disgust that appeared in his face. 

Each thought he was thinking of nothing but "Snark" 
And the glorious work of the day; 
And each tried to pretend that he did not remark 
That the other was going that way. 

But the valley grew narrow and narrower still, 
And the evening got darker and colder, 
Till (merely from nervousness, not from goodwill) 
They marched along shoulder to shoulder. 

Then a scream, shrill and high, rent the shuddering sky, 
And they knew that some danger was near: 
The Beaver turned pale to the tip of its tail, 
And even the Butcher felt queer. 

He thought of his childhood, left far far behind-- 
That blissful and innocent...
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