NEW AND OLD

Make new friends, but keep the old,
Those are silver, these are gold;
New-made friendships, like new wine,
Age will mellow and refine.
Friendships that have stood the test-
Time and change-are surely best;
Brow may wrinkle, hair grow gray,
Friendship never knows decay.
For’ mid old friends, tried and true,
Once more we or youth renew.
But old friends, alas! may die,
New friends must their place supply.
Cherish friendship in your breast,
New is good, but old is best;
Make new friends, but keep the old.
Those are silver, these are gold.

Unknown Author.

CHOICE OF A FRIEND

from “Hamlet”, Act II Sc. 2

HAMLET.- Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man
As e’er my conversation coped withal.
…Nay, do not think I flatter:
For what advancement may I hopoe from thee,
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath sealed thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,-
A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards
Hast ta’en with equal thanks; and blessed are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger
To sound what stop she please: Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.

William Shakespeare

TOO LATE I STAYED

Lines to Lady A. Hamilton


Too late I stayed, -forgive the crime!
Unheeded flew the hours:
How noiseless falls the foot of Time
That only treads on flowers!

And who, with clear account, remarks
The ebbings of his glass,
When all its sands are diamond sparks,
That dazzle as they pass?

O, who to sober measurement
Time’s happy swiftness brings,
When birds of paradise have lent
Their plumage to his wings.

William Robert Spencer

LORD WALTER’S WIFE

“But why do you go?” said the lady, while
both sate under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the
kraken beneath the sea blue.

“Because I fear you,” he answered; -“because
you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your
gold –colored hair.”

“O, that,” she said “is no reason!” Such knots
are quickly undone,
And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but
too much sun.”

“Yet farewell so,” he answered; -“the sun
stroke’s fatal at times.
I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop
rings still from the limes.”

“O that,”she said, “is no reason. You smell a
rose through a fence:
It two should smell it, what matter? who grumbles,
and where’s the pretense?”

“But, I,” he replied, “have promised another,
when love was free,
To love her alone, alone, who alone and afar loves
me.”

“Why, that,” she said, “is no reason. Love’s
always free I am told.
Will you vow to be safe from the headache on
Tuesday, and think it will hold?”.

“But you”, he replied, “have a daughter, a
young little child, who was laid
In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels
would make me afraid.”





“O that”, she said, “is no reason. The angels
keep out of the way;
And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although
you should please me and stay.”

At which he rose up in his anger,-“Why, now,
you no longer are fair!
Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and
hateful, I swear.”

At which she laughed out in her scorn, -“These
men! O, these men overnice,
Who are shocked if a color not virtuous is frankly
put on by a vice.”

Her eyes blazed upon him-And you! You
bring us your vices so near
That we smell them! you think in our presence
a thought it would defame us to hear!

“What reason had you, and what right, -I appeal
to your soul from my life,-
To find me too fair as a woman Why, sir I
am pure and a wife.

“Is the day-star too fair up above you? it burns
you not. Dare you imply
I brushed you more close than the star does, when
Walter had set me as high?

“If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply
adapted too much
To uses unlawful and fatal. The praise!-shall
I thank you for such?

“Too fair?-not unless you misuse us! and surely
if, once in a while,
You attain to it, straightway you call us no longer
too fair, but too vile.

“A moment,-I pray your attention!- I have a
poor word in my head
I must utter, though womanly custom would set
it down better unsaid.

“You grew sir, pale to impertinence, once when
I showed you a ring.
You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter!
I’ve broken the thing.

“You did me the honor, perhaps, to be moved
at my side now and then
In the senses,-a vice, I have heard, which is
common to beasts and some men.

“Love’s a virtue for heroes!-as white as
the snow on high hills,
And immortal as every great soul is that struggles,
endures, and fulfils.

“I love my Walter profoundly,-you, Maude,
though you faltered a week,
For the sake of…what was it? an eyebrow?
or, less still, a mole on a cheek?

“And since, when all’s said, you are too noble to
stoop to the frivolous cant
About crimes irresistible, virtues that swindle,
betray, and supplant,

“I determined to prove to yourself that,
whatever you might dream or avow
By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me
than you have now.

“There! Look me full in the face!-in the face.
Understand, if you can,
That the eyes of such women as I am are clean
as the palm of man.

“Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for
fear we should cost you a scar,-
You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for
the women we are.

“You wronged me: but then I considered…
there’s Walter! And so at the end,
I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me,
in the hand of a friend.

“Have U hurt you indeed? We are quits then.
Nay, friend of my Walter be mine!
Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me
to ask him to dine.”

Elizabeth Barret Browning.

TO HOLD A FRIEND

From “Hamlet,” Act I, Sc. 3

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware
of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear ’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel often proclaims the man;
And they in France, of best rank and station;
are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan often loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

William Shakespeare.

WORTH KNOWING

Time to me this truth hath taught,
It is a truth that’s worth revealing:
More offend from want of thought
Than from want of feeling.

If advice we would convey,
There’s a time we should convey it;
If we have but a word to say,
There is a time in which to say it.

Many a beauteous flower decays,
Though we tend it ever so much;
Something secret on its preys,
Which no human aid can touch.

So in many a loving breast
Lies some canker-grief concealed,
That, if touched, is more oppressed,
Left unto itself-is healed!

Often, unknowingly, the tongue
Touches on a chord so aching
That a word or accent wrong
Pains the heart almost to breaking.

Many a year of wounded pride,
Many a fault of human blindness,
Has been soothed or turned aside
By a quiet voice of kindness.

Time to me this truth hath taught,
It is a truth that is worth revealing:
More offend from want of thought
Than from want of feeling.

The Humbler Poets.

HEREDITARY FRIENDSHIP

From “The Iliad”, Book VI

Now paused the battle (godlike Hector gone),
Where darin Glaucus and great Tydeus’ son
Between both armies met: the chiefs from far
Observed each other, and had marked for war
Near as they drew, Tydides thus began:
“What art thou, boldest of the race of man?
Our eyes till now that aspect never beheld?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………


I brave not heaven: but if the fruits of earth
Sustain thy life, and human be thy birth,
Bold as thou art, too prodigal of breath,
Approach, and enter the dark gates of death.”
“What, or form whence I am, or who my sire
(Replied the chief), can Tydeus’ son inquire?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

A city stands on Argos’ utmost bound
(Argos the fair, for warlike steeds renowned),
Æolian Sisyphus, with wisdom blessed,
In ancient time the happy wall possessed,
Then called Ephyre: Glaucus was his son;
Great Glaucus, father of Bellerophon,
Who over the sons of men in beauty shined,
Loved for that valor which preserves mankind.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………


[Here Glaucus proclaims the valorous deeds of his grandfather, Bellerophon, and his happy marriage, “with two brave sons and one fair daughter blessed.”]

But when at last, distracted in his mind,
Forsook by heaven, forsaking humankind,
Wide over the Aleian field he choose to stray,
A long, forlon, uncomfortable way!
Woes heaped on woes consumed his wasted heart:
His beauteous daughter fell by Phœbe’s dart;
His eldest born by raging Mars was slain,
In combat on the Solymæan plain.
Hippolochus survived: from him I came,
The honored author of my birth and name;
By his decree I sought the Trojan town;
By his instructions learn to win renown,
To stand the first in worth as in command,
To add new honors to my native land,
Before my eyes my mighty sires to place,
And emulate the glories of our race.”
He spoke, and transport filled Tydides’ heart;
In earth the generous warrior fixed his dart,
Then friendly, thus the Lycian prince addressed:
“Welcome, my brave hereditary guest1
Thus eer let us meet, with kind embrace,
Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race.
Know, chief, our grandsires have been guests of old;
Œneus the strong, Bellerophon the bold:
Our ancient seat his honored presence graced,
Where twenty days in genial rites he passed.
The parting heroes mutual presents left;
A golden goblet was thy grandsire’s gift;
Œneus a belt of matchless work bestowed,
That rich with Tyrian dye refulgent glowed.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………



Mindful of this, in friendship let us join;
If heaven our steps to foreign land incline,
My guests in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine.
Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield,
In the full harvest of yon ample field;
Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore;
But thou and Diomed be foes no more.
Now change we arms, and prove to either host
We guard the friendship of the line we boast.”
Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight,
Their hands they join, their mutual faith they light.

HOMER
(Translation of Alexander Pope).

PLATONIC

I had sworn to be a bachelor, she had sworn to be a maid,
For we quite agreed in doubting whether matrimony paid;
Besides, we had our higher loves, —fair science ruled my heart,
And she said her young affections were all wound up in art.

So we laughed at those wise men who say that friendship cannot live
‘Twixt man and woman, unless each has something more to give:
We would be friends, and friends as true as ever were man and man;
I’d be a second David and she Miss Jonathan.

We scorned all sentimental trash,—vows, kisses, tears and sighs;
High friendship, such as ours, might well such childish arts despise;
We liked each other, that was all, quite all there was to say,
So we just shook our hands upon it, in a business sort of way.

We shared our secrets and our joys, together hoped and feared,
With common purpose sought the goal that young Ambition reared;
We dreamed together of the days, the dream-bright days to come,
We were strictly confidential, and we called each other “chum.”

And many a day we wandered together over the hills,
I seeking bugs and butterflies, and she, the ruined mills
And rustic bridges, and the like, that picture-makers prize
To run in with their waterfalls, and grooves, and summer skies.

And many a quiet evening, in hours of silent ease,
We floated down the river, or strolled beneath the trees,
And talked, in long gradation from the poets to the weather,
While the western skies and my cigar burned slowly out together.

Yet through it all no whispered word, no tell-tale glance or sigh,
Told aught of warmer sentiment than friendly sympathy.
We talked of love as coolly as we talked of nebulæ,
And thought no more of being one than we did of being three.

………………………………………………………………………….

“Well, goodbye, chum!” I took her hand, for the time had come to go.
My going meant our parting, when to meet, we did not know.
I had lingered long, and said farewell with a very heavy heart;
For although we were but friends, it is hard for honest friends to part.

“Goodbye old fellow! don’t forget your friends beyond the sea,
And some day, when you have lots of time, drop a line or two to me.”
The words came lightly, gayly, but a great sob, just behind,
Welled upward with a story of quite a different kind.

And then she raised her eyes to mine, —great liquid eyes of blue,
Filled to the brim, and running over, like violet cups of dew;
One long, long glance, and then I did, what I never did before —
Perhaps the tears meant friendship, but I’m sure the kiss meant more.

William Rogers Terrett.

FRIEND AND LOVER

WHEN Psyche’s friend becomes her lover,
How sweetly these conditions blend!
But, oh, what anguish to discover
Her lover has become—her friend!

Mary Ainge de Vere (Madeline Brdges).

A TEMPLE TO FRIENDSHIP

“A temple to Friendship,” cried Laura enchanted,
“I’ll build in this garden, the thought is divine.”
So the temple was built, and she now only wanted
An image of Friendship, to place on the shrine.

So she flew to the sculptor, who sat down before her
An image, the fairest his art could invent;
But so cold, and so dull, that the youthful adorer
Saw plainly this was not the Friendship she meant.

“O never,” said she, “could I think of enshrining
An image whose looks are so joyless and dim;
But yon little god upon roses reclining,
We’ll make, if you please, sir, a Friendship of him.”

So the bargain was struck; with the little god laden,
She joyfully flew to her home in the groove.
“Farewell,” said the sculptor, “you’re not the first maiden
Who came but for Friendship, and took away Love!”

Thomas Moore

TWO NOBLE FRIENDS

From “Ode to the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morison”.

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, there hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily or a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
...............................................

This made you first to know the Why
You liked, then after to apply
That liking, and approach so one the t’ other
Till either grew a portion of the other:
Each styled by his end
The copy of his friend.
You lived to be the great surnames
And titles by which all made claims
Unto the virtue- nothing perfect done
But as a CARY or a MORISON.

And such the force the fair example had
As they that saw
The good, and durst not practice it, were glad
That such a law
Was left yet to mankind,
Where they might read and find
Friendship indeed was written, not in words,
And with the heart, not pen,
Of two so early men,
Whose lines her rules were and records:
Who, ere the first down bloomed on the chin,
Had sowed these fruits, and got the harvest in.

Ben Jonson.

JENNY KISSED ME

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad;
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I’m growing old but add-
Jenny kissed me!

Leigh Hunt

IF YOU HAVE A FRIEND

If you have a friend worth loving,
Love him! Yes, and let him know
That you love him, ere life’s evening
Tinge his brow with sunset glow.
Why should good words never be said
Of a friend-till he is dead?

If you hear a song that thrills you,
Sung by any child of song,
Praise it! Do not let the singer
Wait deserved praises long.
Why should one who thrills your heart
Lack the joy you may impart?

If you hear a prayer that moves you
By its humble, pleading tone,
Join it! Do not let the seeker
Bow before its God alone.
Why should not your brother share
The strength of “two or three” in prayer?

If you see the hot tears falling
From a brother’s weeping eyes
Share them! And by kindly sharing
Own our kinship in the skies.
Why should anyone be glad
When a brother’s heart is sad?

If a silvery laugh goes rippling
Through the sunshine on his face,
Share it! that is the wise man’s saying-
For both grief and joy a place.
There’s health and goodness in the mirth
In which an honest laugh has birth.

If your work is made more easy
By a friendly, helping hand,
Say so! Speak out brave and truly
Ere the darkness veil the land.
Should a brother workman dear
Falter for a word of cheer?

Scatter thus your seeds of kindness
All enriching as you go—
Leave them! Trust the Harvest-Giver;
He will make each seed to grow.
So, until the happy end,
Your life shall never lack a friend.


Leigh Hunt

FRIENDSHIP

Dear friend, I pray thee, if thou wouldst be proving
Thy strong regard for me,
Make me no vows. Lip-service is not loving;
Let thy faith speak for thee.

Swear not to me that nothing can divide us,
So little such oaths mean!
But when distrust and envy creep beside us,
Let them not come between.

Say not to me the depths of thy devotion
Are deeper than the sea;
But watch, lest doubt or some unkind emotion
Embitter them for me.

Vow not to love me ever and forever,-
Words are such idle things!
But when we differ in opinions, never
Hurt me by little stings.

I’m sick of words, they are so lightly spoken,
And spoken, are but air.
I’d rather feel thy trust in me unbroken
Than list to thy words so fair.

If all the little proofs of trust are heeded
If thou art always kind,
No sacrifice, no promise will needed
To satisfy my mind.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

WAITING

Serene, I fond my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, or tide, or sea;
I rave no more ’gainst time or fate,
For, lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

John Burroughs

THE ROYAL GUEST

They tell me I am shrewd with other men;
With thee I’m slow, and difficult of speech.
With others I may guide the car of talk:
Thou wing’st it oft to realms beyond my reach.

If other guests should come, I’d deck my hair,
And choose my newest garment from the shelf;
When thou art bidden, I would clothe my heart
With holiest purpose, as for God himself.

For them I while the hours with tale or song,
Or web of fancy, fringed with careless rhyme;
But how to find a fitting lay for thee,
Who hast the harmonies of every time?

O friend beloved! I sit apart and dumb,-
Sometimes in sorrow, oft in joy divine;
My lip will falter, but my prisioned heart
Springs forth to measure its faint pulse with thine.

Thou art to me most like a royal guest,
Whose travels bring him to some lowly roof,
Where simple rustics spread their festal fare
And, blushing, own it is not good enough.

Bethink thee, then, whenever thou com’st to me,
From high emprise and noble toil to rest,
My thoughts are weak and trivial, matched with thine;
But the poor mansion offers thee its best.

Julia Ward Howe

A PRAYER

It is my joy in life to find
At every turning of the road,
The strong arm of a comrade kind
To help me onward with my load.

And since I have not gold to give,
And love alone must make amends,
My only prayer is, while I live,-
God make me worthy of my friends!.

Frank Dempster Sherman

FRIENDLESS?

“For this true nobleness I seek in vain,
In woman and in man I find it not,
I almost weary of my earthy lot,
My life-strings are dried up with burning pain”-
Thou find’st it not? I pray thee look again,
Look inward through the depths of thine own soul;
How is it with thee? Art thou sound and whole?
Doth narrow search show thee no earthly stain?
BE NOBLE! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own;
Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes,
Then will pure light around thy path be shed,
And thou wilt nevermore be sad and lone.

James Russell Lowell

A PETITION FOR FRIENDSHIP

If yet one corner in thy heart
Remains, good Fuscus, unpossessed
(For many a friend, I know, is thine),
Give me to claim that corner mine,
Nor thou the honored place I sue
Refuse to an acquaintance new.
The oldest friend of all thy store
Was once, it is certain, nothing more.
If matters not how late thy choice
If but approved by reason’s voice.
Then let thy sole inquiry be
If thou canst find such worth in me
That, constant as the years are rolled,
Matures new friendship into old.

From the Latin of Martial.

THE SPEEDY FRIEND

Beware a speedy friend, the Arabian said,
And wisely was it he advised distrust,
The flower that blossoms earliest fades the first.
Look at yon oak that lifts its stately head
And dallies with the autumnal storm, whose rage
Tempests the ocean waves; slowly it rose,
Slowly its strength increased,
through many an age,
And timidly did its light leaves unclose,
As doubtful of the spring, their palest green.
They to the summer cautiously expand,
And by the warmer sun and season bland
Matured, their foliage in the grove is seen,
When the bare forest by the wintry blast
is swept, still lingering on the bough the last.

Robert Southey.