Friendship poems
/ page 59 of 65 /
Having each of you as friends
© Ivan Donn Carswell
For more than 40 years weve been good friends,
since 1963 in fact, from college where we met
(and managed there to build a strong quartet
of campus friendship which kept those years intact,
Growing Apart
© Ivan Donn Carswell
We knew their names
or thought we did, we knew their faces
from an album of places wed played
in a fabulous lifetime of childhood shared.
Dead mans clothes
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Growing up, I propose,
is like wearing a dead mans clothes.
Death has a way of levelling the ground.
I have found the closer your relationship
Colours in lamplight
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Colours in lamplight are previews,
scarcely eschewed as wave-length turbulence
tuned to closeness and friendship.
Colours in firelight are skin-warmed
To Caroline: Oh When Shall The Grave Hide
© George Gordon Byron
Oh when shall the grave hide for ever my sorrow?
Oh when shall my soul wing her flight from this clay?
The present is hell, and the coming to-morrow
But brings, with new torture, the curse of to-day.
Lallegro
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
Felicity!
Who ope'st to none that knocks, yet, laughing weak,
Wedding-Ring
© Denise Levertov
My wedding-ring lies in a basket
as if at the bottom of a well.
Nothing will come to fish it back up
and onto my finger again.
A Ballad Of Santa Claus
© Henry Van Dyke
For the St. Nicholas Society of New York
Among the earliest saints of old, before the first Hegira,
A Letter From Li Po
© Conrad Aiken
Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind
announces autumn, and the equinox
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,
Hudibras: Part 2 - Canto III
© Samuel Butler
Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat;
As lookers-on feel most delight,
That least perceive a jugler's slight;
And still the less they understand,
The more th' admire his slight of hand.
Visions for the Entertainment and Instruction of Younger Minds: Happiness
© Nathaniel Cotton
Ye ductile youths, whose rising sun
Hath many circles still to run;
A Lover Since Childhood
© Robert Graves
Tangled in thought am I,
Stumble in speech do I?
Do I blunder and blush for the reason why?
Wander aloof do I,
Lean over gates and sigh,
Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?
Our Friendship (January 14)
© David Lehman
We have a name for it
in the South:
asshole buddies.
It means we've known
The Triumph Of Achilles
© Louise Gluck
In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.
From The Ladies Defence
© Lady Mary Chudleigh
Melissa: I've still rever'd your Order [she is responding to a Parson] as Divine;
And when I see unblemish'd Virtue shine,
When solid Learning, and substantial Sense,
Are joyn'd with unaffected Eloquence;
Unto one who lies at rest
© Helen Hunt Jackson
Unto one who lies at rest
'Neath the sunset, in the West,
Clover-blossoms on her breast.
Tis the Last Rose of Summer
© Thomas Moore
Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone:
On Music
© Thomas Moore
When through life unblest we rove,
Losing all that made life dear,
Should some notes we used to love,
In days of boyhood, meet our ear,
Oh! Think Not My Spirits Are Always As Light
© Thomas Moore
Oh! think not my spirits are always as light,
And as free from a pang as they seem to you now,
Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night
Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow.
Avenging and Bright
© Thomas Moore
Avenging and bright fall the swift sword of Erin
On him who the brave sons of Usna betray'd! --
For every fond eye he hath waken'd a tear in
A drop from his heart-wounds shall weep o'er her blade.
