Friendship poems
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Runnamede, A Tragedy. Acts III.-V.
© John Logan
What venerable father stands aghast
In yonder porch? Beneath the weight of years,
And crush of sorrow to the earth he bends.
He wrings his hands; casts a wild look to heaven,
And rends his hoary locks. He comes this way.
Heavens, it is Albemarle!-
Inscription On The Monument Of A Newfoundland Dog
© George Gordon Byron
When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
Sport In The Meadows
© John Clare
Maytime is to the meadows coming in,
And cowslip peeps have gotten eer so big,
Red Carnations
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
One time in Arcadie's fair bowers
There met a bright immortal band,
To choose their emblems from the flowers
That made an Eden of that land.
To Sensibility
© Helen Maria Williams
In SENSIBILITY'S lov'd praise
I tune my trembling reed,
And seek to deck her shrine with bays,
On which my heart must bleed!
Friendship
© William Cowper
What virtue, or what mental grace
But men unqualified and base
Will boast it their possession?
Profusion apes the noble part
Of liberality of heart,
And dulness of discretion.
A Cavaliers Toast
© Madison Julius Cawein
Some drink to Friendship, some to Love,--
Through whom the world is fair, perdie!--
But I to one these others prove,
Who leaps 'mid lions for a glove,
Or dies to set another free--
I drink to Loyalty.
A Prouder Man Than You
© Henry Lawson
If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine,
If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign,
If you're proud because of fortune or the clever things you do -
Then I'll play no second fiddle: I'm a prouder man than you!
On General Lawrence
© Hannah More
Born to command to conquer, and to spare,
As mercy mild, yet terrible as war,
The Change
© Henry King
Il sabio mude conseio: Il loco persevera.
We lov'd as friends now twenty years and more:
Is't time or reason think you to give o're?
When though two prentiships set Jacob free,
Prosopopoia : or, Mother Hubbards Tale
© Edmund Spenser
Yet he the name on him would rashly take,
Maugre the sacred Muses, and it make
A servant to the vile affection
Of such, as he depended most upon;
And with the sugrie sweete thereof allure
Chast Ladies eares to fantasies impure.
Masnawi
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
In the prologue to the Masnavi Rumi hailed Love and its sweet madness that heals all infirmities, and he exhorted the reader to burst the bonds to silver and gold to be free. The Beloved is all in all and is only veiled by the lover. Rumi identified the first cause of all things as God and considered all second causes subordinate to that. Human minds recognize the second causes, but only prophets perceive the action of the first cause. One story tells of a clever rabbit who warned the lion about another lion and showed the lion his own image in a well, causing him to attack it and drown. After delivering his companions from the tyrannical lion, the rabbit urges them to engage in the more difficult warfare against their own inward lusts. In a debate between trusting God and human exertion, Rumi quoted the prophet Muhammad as saying, "Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg."8 He also mentioned the adage that the worker is the friend of God; so in trusting in providence one need not neglect to use means. Exerting oneself can be giving thanks for God's blessings; but he asked if fatalism shows gratitude.
God is hidden and has no opposite, not seen by us yet seeing us. Form is born of the formless but ultimately returns to the formless. An arrow shot by God cannot remain in the air but must return to God. Rumi reconciled God's agency with human free will and found the divine voice in the inward voice. Those in close communion with God are free, but the one who does not love is fettered by compulsion. God is the agency and first cause of our actions, but human will as the second cause finds recompense in hell or with the Friend. God is like the soul, and the world is like the body. The good and evil of bodies comes from souls. When the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed to one, it is shameful to turn back to mere formal religion. Rumi confirmed Muhammad's view that women hold dominion over the wise and men of heart; but violent fools, lacking tenderness, gentleness, and friendship, try to hold the upper hand over women, because they are swayed by their animal nature. The human qualities of love and tenderness can control the animal passions. Rumi concluded that woman is a ray of God and the Creator's self.
Epitaph On A Beloved Friend
© George Gordon Byron
Oh, Friend! for ever loved, for ever dear!
What fruitless tears have bathed thy honour'd bier!
What sighs re'echo'd to thy parting breath,
Wilst thou wast struggling in the pangs of death!
Shakuntala Act 1
© Kalidasa
King Dushyant in a chariot, pursuing an antelope, with a bow and quiver, attended by his Charioteer.
Suta (Charioteer). [Looking at the antelope, and then at the king]
When I cast my eye on that black antelope, and on thee, O king, with thy braced bow, I see before me, as it were, the God Mahésa chasing a hart (male deer), with his bow, named Pináca, braced in his left hand.
Come Si Quando
© Robert Seymour Bridges
How thickly the far fields of heaven are strewn with stars !
Tho* the open eye of day shendeth them with its glare
A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet XXVIII
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Yet it is pitiful how friendships die,
Spite of our oaths eternal and high vows.
Some fall through blight of tongues wagged secretly,
Some through strifes loud in empty honour's house.
To An Infant
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
To anger rapid and as soon appeased,
For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased;
Break friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow,
Yet snatch what coals of fire on pleasure's altar glow!
