My Friend

I have a friend who came, I know not how,
Nor he. Among the crowd, apart,
I feel the pressure of his hand, and hear
In very truth the beating of his heart.

My soul had shut the door of abode,
So poor it seemed for any guest
To tarry there a night, until he came,
Asking, not entertainment, only rest.

Our hands were empty,-his and mine alike,
He says until they joined. I see
The gifts he brought; but where were mine
That he should say "I too have need of thee?"

Without the threshold of his heart I wait
Abashed, afraid to enter where
So radiant a company do meet,
Yet enter boldly, knowing I am there.

Whether his hand shall press my latch to-night,
To-morrow, matters not. He came
Unsummoned, he will come again; and I,
Though dead, shall answer to my name.

And yet, dear friend, in whom I rest content,
Speak to me now lest when we meet
Where tears and hunger have no grace,
A little word of friendship be less sweet.

Arthur Sherburne Hardy

Arthur Sherburne Hardy was an American engineer, educator, editor, diplomat, novelist, and poet, born on August 13, 1847. He is known for his diverse career and contribution to various fields, including literature. Hardy served as a professor of civil engineering and later became a notable figure in diplomacy, serving in positions such as the United States Ambassador to Greece, Romania, and Switzerland. He passed away on March 13, 1930.

Arthur Sherburne Hardy

Songs Of Two

Arthur Sherburne Hardy, Simple Poetry

On The Fly-Leaf Of The Rubaiyat

Arthur Sherburne Hardy, Simple Poetry

With April Arbutus, To A Friend

Arthur Sherburne Hardy, Simple Poetry

In An Album

Arthur Sherburne Hardy, Simple Poetry

English

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Songs Of Two

I

Last night I dreamed this dream: That I was dead;
And as I slept, forgot of man and God,
That other dreamless sleep of rest,
I heard a footstep on the sod,
As of one passing overhead,
And lo, thou, Dear, didst touch me on the breast,
Saying: "What shall I write against thy name
That men should see?"
Then quick the answer came,
"I was beloved of thee."


II

Dear Giver of Thyself when at thy side,
I see the path beyond divide,
Where we must walk alone a little space,
I say: "Now am I strong indeed
To wait with only memory awhile,
Content, until I see thy face, "
Yet turn, as one in sorest need,
To ask once more thy giving grace,
So, at the last
Of all our partings, when the night
Has hidden from my failing si...

Arthur Sherburne Hardy

Three Friends Of Mine

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...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Friendship

When presses hard my load of care,
And other friends from me depart,
I want a friend my grief to share,
With faithful speech and loving heart.

I want a friend of noble mind,
Who loves me more than praise or pelf,
Reproves my faults with spirit kind,
And thinks of me as well as self--

A friend whose ear is ever closed
Against traducers' poison breath;
And, though in me be not disclosed
An equal love, yet loves till death--

A friend who knows my weakness well,
And ever seeks to calm my fears;
If words should fail the storm to quell,
Will soothe my fevered heart with tears--

A friend not moved by jealousy
Should I outrun him in life's race;
And though I doubt, still trusts in me
With loyal heart and cloudless face.

Joseph Horatio Chant

Verses Selected From An Occasional Poem Entitled Valediction.

O Friendship! cordial of the human breast!
So little felt, so fervently professd!
Thy blossoms deck our unsuspecting years;
The promise of delicious fruit appears:
We hug the hopes of constancy and truth,
Such is the folly of our dreaming youth;
But soon, alas! detect the rash mistake
That sanguine inexperience loves to make;
And view with tears the expected harvest lost,
Decayd by time, or witherd by a frost.
Whoever undertakes a friends great part
Should be renewd in nature, pure in heart,
Prepared for martyrdom, and strong to prove
A thousand ways the force of genuine love.
He may be calld to give up health and gain,
To exchange content for trouble, ease for pain,
To echo sigh for sigh, and groan for groan,
And wet his cheeks with sorrows not his...

William Cowper

My Friends.

        "My never-failing friends are they,
        With whom I converse day by day."
                                            - Southey.


    Some to and fro for converse flit
        And on their friends intrude,
    Or shun society and sit
        In cheerless solitude;
    But I can sit, when night descends,
    At home among a thousand friends.

    The garish day is left behind,
        The scurry and the din;
    The hours of toil are out of mind,
        As if they had not been.
    No thought of morrow that impends
    Comes in between me and my friends.

    We reck not of the flight of time,
        To them a subject strange;
    They pass their days in a sublime
        Indifference to change:
    Their...

W. M. MacKeracher

Greeting

I spread a scanty board too late;
The old-time guests for whom I wait
Come few and slow, methinks, to-day.
Ah! who could hear my messages
Across the dim unsounded seas
On which so many have sailed away!

Come, then, old friends, who linger yet,
And let us meet, as we have met,
Once more beneath this low sunshine;
And grateful for the good weve known,
The riddles solved, the ills outgrown,
Shake hands upon the border line.

The favor, asked too oft before,
From your indulgent ears, once more
I crave, and, if belated lays
To slower, feebler measures move,
The silent, sympathy of love
To me is dearer now than praise.

And ye, O younger friends, for whom
My hearth and heart keep open room,
Come smiling through the shadows long,<...

John Greenleaf Whittier