A friend!--It seems a simple boon to crave,--
An easy thing to have.
Yet our world differs somewhat from the days
Of the romancer's lays.
A friend? Why, _all_ are friends in Christian lands.
We smile and clasp the hands
With merry fellows o'er cigars and wine.
We breakfast, walk, and dine
With social men and women. Yes, we are friends;--
And there the music ends!
No close heart-heats,--a cool sweet ice-cream feast,--
Mild thaws, to say the least;--
The faint, slant smile of winter afternoons;--
The inconstant moods of moons,
Sometimes too late, sometimes too early rising,--
But for a night sufficing,
Showing a half-face, clouded, shy, and null,--
Once in a month at full,--
Lending to-night what from the sun they borrow,
Quenched in his light to-morrow.
If thou'rt my friend, show me the life that sleeps
Down in thy spirit's deeps.
Give all thy heart, the thought within thy thought.
Nay, I've already caught
Its meaning in thine eyes, thy tones. What need
Of words? Flowers keep their seed.
I love thee ere thou tellest me "I love.
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