Friend Is Forever : Precious Poems That Celebrate the Beauty of Friendship

by BLEASE, KATHLEEN

• ISBN13: 9780449003817
• ISBN10: 0449003817
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1999-02-01
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

Thrice is sweet music sweet when every word And lovely tone by kindred hearts are heard; So when I hear true music, Heaven send, To share that heavenly joy, one dear, dear friend! --From "Music and Friendship" by Richard Watson Gilder Lovers and others may come and go in our lives but a friend is forever. This beautiful bouquet to friendship reminds us how much the everyday companionship of friends means to us, and how lost we would be without it. Our burdens are lightened by the kindness of friends, for even in life's roughest patches, the bonds of true friendship hold fast. This collection of insightful and inspiring poems, from simple loving hearts as well as literary masters, proves that while love may make the world go 'round, it's friendship that holds it together. A Friend Is Forever makes us proud to have a friend, and to be one.

Author Biography

Kathleen Blease is a writer and editor whose first poetry collection was Love in Verse: Classic Poems of the Heart. She and her husband, Roger, and their small children live in the historic district of Easton, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	xiii
It Is a Sweet Thing	1	(1)
Percy Bysshe Shelley
We'll Never Part Again	2	(3)
Anna Maria Wells
An Epigram	5	(1)
Kassia
Under the Greenwood Tree	6	(1)
William Shakespeare
Friendship	7	(2)
Maria A. Brooks
A Sonnet	9	(1)
Alfred
Lord Tennyson
A Legacy	10	(1)
John Greenleaf Whittier
To W. M.	11	(1)
Francis Thompson
God's Best Gift	12	(2)
Lucy Larcom
The Means to Attain Happy Life	14	(1)
Henry Howard
Earl of Surrey
When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought	15	(1)
William Shakespeare
To His Friend Master R. L., in Praise of Music and Poetry	16	(1)
Richard Barnfield
Of Perfect Friendship	17	(1)
Henry Cheke
Being Foresaken of His Friend He Complaineth	18	(2)
E. S.
Octaves: XV	20	(1)
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Writen in an Album	21	(1)
Hannah Flagg Gould
The Arrow and the Song	22	(1)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
On Parting with a Friend	23	(1)
Mary Weston Fordham
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing	24	(1)
Walt Whitman
In Memoriam	25	(1)
Mary Weston Fordham
I Go, Sweet Friends	26	(1)
Felicia Hemans
Reconciliation	27	(2)
Grace Greenwood
Music and Friendship	29	(1)
Richard Watson Gilder
Of My Friend	30	(1)
Francis Thompson
Friendship	31	(1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
True Friends	32	(1)
Thomas Carlyle
A Song	33	(1)
Lucretia Maria Davidson
At the Grave of Burns	34	(1)
William Wordsworth
Sonnets from the Portuguese: Sonnet 2	35	(1)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
To Mrs. M. A. at Parting	36	(4)
Katherine Philips
Who?	40	(1)
Emily Dickinson
The Present Age	41	(5)
Frances E. W. Harper
Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes	46	(1)
Walt Whitman
Friendship After Love	47	(1)
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To Mrs. P-----, With Some Drawings of Birds and Insects	48	(2)
Anna Lœtitia Barbauld
A Shropshire Lad	50	(1)
Alfred Edward Housman
Medicine Songs: Transcribed from the Indian Originals	51	(2)
Mary Austin
Lines Addressed to a Cousin	53	(1)
Lucretia Maria Davidson
Auld Lang Syne	54	(1)
Robert Burns
The Three Sorts of Friends	55	(1)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
To Nothing Fitter	56	(1)
Michael Drayton
The Good, Great Man	57	(1)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Friendship's Mystery, To My Dearest Lucasia	58	(2)
Katherine Philips
To My Excellent Lucasia, On Our Friendship	60	(2)
Katherine Philips
Parting With Lucasia: A Song	62	(2)
Katherine Philips
Alas, 'Tis True I Have Gone Here and There	64	(1)
William Shakespeare
The Fountain: A Conversation	65	(4)
William Wordworth
Little Things	69	(1)
Julia Carney
Polonius' Advice to His Son	70	(1)
William Shakespeare
If I Should Die Tonight	71	(2)
Arabella Eugenia Smith
What Is Good?	73	(1)
John Boyle O'Reilly
My Old Friend	74	(2)
James Whitcomb Riley
Friendship's Like Music	76	(1)
Francis Quarles
My Heart Was Comforted	77	(1)
Margaret E. Sangster
Friends of Youth	78	(1)
Aubrey Thomas de Vere
Silence	79	(1)
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Friendship	80	(2)
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Life's Mirror	82	(1)
Madeline S. Bridges
Home, Sweet Home	83	(3)
Frances E. W. Harper
True Friendship from the Bible	86	(1)
My Playmate	87	(4)
John Greenleaf Whittier
Bill and Joe	91	(3)
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Love Thyself Last	94	(1)
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
'Tis the Last Rose of Summer	95	(1)
Thomas Moore
The Meeting	96	(2)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Old Familiar Faces	98	(2)
Charles Lamb
Address of Ruth to Naomi from the Bible	100	(1)
Parting	101	(1)
Coventry Patmore
Love and Friendship	102	(1)
Emily Bronte
To a Distant Friend	103	(1)
William Wordsworth
I Read, Dear Friend	104	(1)
Robert Louis Stevenson
A Temple to Friendship	105	(1)
Thomas Moore
New Friends and Old Friends	106	(1)
Anonymous
To a Youthful Friend	107	(4)
George Gordon
Lord Byron
The Human Touch	111	(1)
Spencer Michael Free
A Wayfaring Song	112	(1)
Henry van Dyke
Friendship Needs No Studied Phrases	113	(1)
Anonymous
Friendship	114	(1)
Samuel Johnson
Index of Authors	115	(4)
Index of First Lines	119	(4)
About the Author	123