Part 2 — A FRIEND.

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." We both are raised above The ball-room puppets with their varnished faces, Whispering dead commonplaces, Doing their best to dress their lifeless thought In tinselled phrase worth naught; Or at the best, throwing a passing spark Like fire-flies in the dark;— Not the continuous lamp-light of the soul, Which, though the seasons roll Without on tides of ever-varying winds, The watcher never finds Flickering in draughts, or dim for lack of oil. There is a clime, a soil, Where loves spring up twin-stemmed from mere chance seed Dropped by a word, a deed. As travellers toiling through the Alpine snow See Italy below;— Down glacier slopes and craggy cliffs and pines Descend upon the vines, And meet the welcoming South who half-way up Lifts her o'erbrimming cup,— So, blest is he, from peaks of human ice Lit on this Paradise;— Who 'mid the jar of tongues hears music sweet;— Who in some foreign street Thronged with cold eyes catches a hand, a glance, That deifies his chance, That turns the dreary city to a home, The blank hotel to a dome Of splendor, while the unsympathizing crowd Seems with his light endowed. Many there be who call themselves our friends. But ah! if Heaven sends One, only one, the fellow to our soul, To make our half a whole, Rich beyond price are we. The millionnaire Without such boon is bare, Bare to the skin,—a gilded tavern-sign Creaking with fitful whine Beneath chill winds, with none to look at him Save as a label grim To the good cheer and company within His comfortable inn.