Friendship

"From these wild rocks I look to-day
O'er leagues of dancing waves, and see
The far, low coast-line stretch away
To where our river meets the sea.

The light wind blowing off the land
Is burdened with old voices; through
Shut eyes I see how lip and hand
The greeting of old days renew.

O friends whose hearts still keep their prime,
Whose bright example warms and cheers,
Ye teach us how to smile at Time,
And set to music all his years!

I thank you for sweet summer days,
For pleasant memories lingering long,
For joyful meetings, fond delays,
And ties of friendship woven strong.

As for the last time, side by side,
You tread the paths familiar grown,
I reach across the severing tide,
And blend my farewells with your own.
<...

(Macmillan's Magazine, Dec. 1864.)


Two days ago with dancing glancing hair,
    With living lips and eyes:
    Now pale, dumb, blind, she lies;
So pale, yet still so fair.

We have not left her yet, not yet alone;
    But soon must leave her where
    She will not miss our care,
Bone of our bone.

Weep not; O friends, we should not weep:
    Our friend of friends lies full of rest;
    No sorrow rankles in her breast,
Fallen fast asleep.

She sleeps below,
    She wakes and laughs above:
    To-day, as she walked, let us walk in love;
To-morrow follow so.

        When first I looked upon the face of Pain
    I shrank repelled, as one shrinks from a foe
    Who stands with dagger poised, as for a blow.
        I was in search of Pleasure and of Gain;
        I turned aside to let him pass: in vain;
    He looked straight in my eyes and would not go.
    "Shake hands," he said; "our paths are one, and so
        We must be comrades on the way, 'tis plain."

        I felt the firm clasp of his hand on mine;
    Through all my veins it sent a strengthening glow.
    I straightway linked my arm in his, and lo!
        He led me forth to joys almost divine;
    With God's great truths enriched me in the end:
    And now I hold him as my dearest friend.

I

When I remember them, those friends of mine,
    Who are no longer here, the noble three,
    Who half my life were more than friends to me,
    And whose discourse was like a generous wine,
I most of all remember the divine
    Something, that shone in them, and made us see
    The archetypal man, and what might be
    The amplitude of Nature's first design.
In vain I stretch my hands to clasp their hands;
    I cannot find them.    Nothing now is left
    But a majestic memory.    They meanwhile
Wander together in Elysian lands,
    Perchance remembering me, who am bereft
    Of their dear presence, and, remembering, smile.


II

In Attica thy birthplace should have been,
    Or the Ionian Isles, or where the seas
    Encircl...

    Poems are holy things. Eternal Truth,
    Borrowing the robes of song and lovely grown,
    In them her glory unto man proclaims
    And fills his longing soul. They softly speak
    Of Nature's beauty and the secrets old
    Concealed behind the shadows of the hills,
    And love on angel fingers borne to men,
    Naming them over in so sweet a voice
    That music leads their footsteps in the ways
    Where God has walked; and with a lofty Harp,
    As wondrous as the gentle harps of heaven,
    Uplifts, ennobles, soothes and leads the race
    Unto its last great ultimate of power,
    To words of tenderness and goodly deeds.

Friend of mine! whose lot was cast
With me in the distant past;
Where, like shadows flitting fast,

Fact and fancy, thought and theme,
Word and work, begin to seem
Like a half-remembered dream!

Touched by change have all things been,
Yet I think of thee as when
We had speech of lip and pen.

For the calm thy kindness lent
To a path of discontent,
Rough with trial and dissent;

Gentle words where such were few,
Softening blame where blame was true,
Praising where small praise was due;

For a waking dream made good,
For an ideal understood,
For thy Christian womanhood;

For thy marvellous gift to cull
From our common life and dull
Whatsoe'er is beautiful;

Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees
Droppi...

Here’s my case. Of old I used to love him,
This same unseen friend, before I knew:
Dream there was none like him, none above him,
Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.

Loved I not his letters full of beauty?
Not his actions famous far and wide?
Absent, he would know I vowed him duty;
Present, he would find me at his side.

Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,
Only knew of actions by hearsay:
He himself was busied with my betters;
What of that? My turn must come some day.

“Some day” proving, no day! Here’s the puzzle.
Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?
He’s so busied! If I could but muzzle
People’s foolish mouths that give me pain!

“Letters?” (hear them!) “You a judge of writing?
Ask the experts! How they shake the hea...

It is not what we say or sing,
That keeps our charm so long unbroken,
Though every lightest leaf we bring
May touch the heart as friendship's token;
Not what we sing or what we say
Can make us dearer to each other;
We love the singer and his lay,
But love as well the silent brother.

Yet bring whate'er your garden grows,
Thrice welcome to our smiles and praises;
Thanks for the myrtle and the rose,
Thanks for the marigolds and daisies;
One flower erelong we all shall claim,
Alas! unloved of Amaryllis -
Nature's last blossom-need I name
The wreath of threescore's silver lilies?

How many, brothers, meet to-night
Around our boyhood's covered embers?
Go read the treasured names aright
The old triennial list remembers;
Though twenty we...

Brother and friend I found thee in the hour
Of need and day of trouble, strong and true. -
In June's fair mirth, and when the sunrise hue
Shewed bright where joy had built his thoughtless bower,
Thou wert a child to sport with, something lower
Than a friend's need. I gave, methought, thy due, -
An elder sister's gentleness, nor knew
That ere Spring dawned my soul would feel thy power.
    Brother and Friend!

A man, with a man's strength, and will, and fire,
I know thee, my Alcides; thus a god
For some fair soul to reverence, and desire
To own and worship. I can place thee higher
To-day, in naming thee, - pain's paths just trod -
    Brother and Friend.

So we, who 've supped the self-same cup,
To-night must lay our friendship by;
Your wrath has burned your judgment up,
Hot breath has blown the ashes high.
You say that you are wronged--ah, well,
I count that friendship poor, at best
A bauble, a mere bagatelle,
That cannot stand so slight a test.

I fain would still have been your friend,
And talked and laughed and loved with you;
But since it must, why, let it end;
The false but dies, 't is not the true.
So we are favored, you and I,
Who only want the living truth.
It was not good to nurse the lie;
'T is well it died in harmless youth.

I go from you to-night to sleep.
Why, what's the odds? why should I grieve?
I have no fund of tears to weep
For happenings that undeceive.
The day...

O thicker, deeper, darker growing,
The solemn vista to the tomb
Must know henceforth another shadow,
And give another cypress room.

In love surpassing that of brothers,
We walked, O friend, from childhood’s day;
And, looking back o’er fifty summers,
Our footprints track a common way.

One in our faith, and one our longing
To make the world within our reach
Somewhat the better for our living,
And gladder for our human speech.

Thou heard’st with me the far-off voices,
The old beguiling song of fame,
But life to thee was warm and present,
And love was better than a name.

To homely joys and loves and friendships
Thy genial nature fondly clung;
And so the shadow on the dial
Ran back and left thee always young.

And wh...

"And wept to see the paths of life divide." - Shenstone.

Here the companions of our careless prime,
Whom fortune's various ways have severed long,
Since that fair dawn when Hope her vernal song
Sang blithe, with features marked by stealing time
At these restoring springs are met again!
We, young adventurers on life's opening road,
Set out together; to their last abode
Some have sunk silent, some a while remain,
Some are dispersed; of many, growing old
In life's obscurer bourne, no tale is told.
Here, ere the shades of the long night descend,
And all our wanderings in oblivion end,
The parted meet once more, and pensive trace
(Marked by that hand unseen, whose iron pen
Writes "mortal change" upon the fronts of men)
The creeping furrows in each other's fac...

Thou foolish Hafiz! Say, do churls
Know the worth of Oman's pearls?
Give the gem which dims the moon
To the noblest, or to none.


Dearest, where thy shadow falls,
Beauty sits and Music calls;
Where thy form and favor come,
All good creatures have their home.


On prince or bride no diamond stone
Half so gracious ever shone,
As the light of enterprise
Beaming from a young man's eyes.

It is a pity and a shame - alas! alas! I know it is,
To tread the trodden grapes again, but so it has been, so it is;
The purple vintage long is past, with ripened clusters bursting so
They filled the wine-vats to the brim,-'t is strange you will be thirsting so!

Too well our faithful memory tells what might be rhymed or sung about,
For all have sighed and some have wept since last year's snows were flung about;
The beacon flame that fired the sky, the modest ray that gladdened us,
A little breath has quenched their light, and deepening shades have saddened us.

No more our brother's life is ours for cheering or for grieving us,
One only sadness they bequeathed, the sorrow of their leaving us;
Farewell! Farewell! - I turn the leaf I read my chiming measure in;
Who knows but...

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;
Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view
A fate more pleasing, a delight more true
Than that in which the brother Poets joy'd,
Who with combined powers, their wit employ'd
To raise a trophy to the drama's muses.
The thought of this great partnership diffuses
Over the genius loving heart, a feeling
Of all that's high, and great, and good, and healing.

Too partial friend! fain would I follow thee
Past each horizon of fine poesy;
Fain would I echo back each pleasant note
As o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float
'Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted,
Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted:
But 'tis impossible, far different cares
Beckon me sternly fr...

On a blank leaf of "poems printed, not published.


Well thought! who would not rather hear
The songs to Love and Friendship sung
Than those which move the stranger's tongue,
And feed his unselected ear?

Our social joys are more than fame;
Life withers in the public look.
Why mount the pillory of a book,
Or barter comfort for a name?

Who in a house of glass would dwell,
With curious eyes at every pane?
To ring him in and out again,
Who wants the public crier's bell?

To see the angel in one's way,
Who wants to play the ass's part,
Bear on his back the wizard Art,
And in his service speak or bray?

And who his manly locks would shave,
And quench the eyes of common sense,
To share the noisy recompense
Th...

ON A SUN-PORTRAIT OF HER HUSBAND, SENT BY HIS WIFE TO THEIR FRIEND.

Beautiful eyes, - and shall I see no more
The living thought when it would leap from them,
And play in all its sweetness 'neath their lids?

Here was a man familiar with fair heights
That poets climb. Upon his peace the tears
And troubles of our race deep inroads made,
Yet life was sweet to him; he kept his heart
At home. Who saw his wife might well have thought, -
"God loves this man. He chose a wife for him, -
The true one!" O sweet eyes, that seem to live,
I know so much of you, tell me the rest!
Eyes full of fatherhood and tender care
For small, young children. Is a message here
That you would fain have sent, but had not time?
If such there be, I promise, by long love
And perfec...

April 1st, 1785.

    While briers an' woodbines budding green,
    An' paitricks scraichin' loud at e'en,
    An' morning poussie whidden seen,
        Inspire my muse,
    This freedom in an unknown frien'
        I pray excuse.

    On Fasten-een we had a rockin',
    To ca' the crack and weave our stockin',
    And there was muckle fun an' 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 aught describ'd sae weel,
    What gen'r...