Heart Songs

<h2><SPAN name="HIS_EX-PLATONIC_FRIEND" id="HIS_EX-PLATONIC_FRIEND"></SPAN>His Ex-Platonic Friend</h2> <div class="poetry"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">I’ve lost a thing of value great,<br/></span> <span class="i2">And, woe is me, I’ll now find it<br/></span> <span class="i0">The very choicest thing of all,<br/></span> <span class="i2">Or sure, you know I wouldn’t mind it.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_217" id="page_217"></SPAN>{217}</span><br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Some call it friendship&mdash;I don’t know.<br/></span> <span class="i0">But take their word as is my duty,<br/></span> <span class="i0">But if the definition’s true,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Then friendship is a thing of beauty.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">For mine took on so fair a form<br/></span> <span class="i0">It charmed away all care and sadness,<br/></span> <span class="i0">It flashed out beams so strong and warm,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Away went everything but gladness.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">It looked from tender eyes of brown,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And spake my greatest fault forgiven,<br/></span> <span class="i0">In wondrous sweetness there it shone&mdash;<br/></span> <span class="i0">In truest eyes outside of heaven.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">I felt it in the hand I clasped,<br/></span> <span class="i0">So small, and yet so strong to guide me<br/></span> <span class="i0">Through waters deep, or breakers past,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Or aught that threatened to betide me.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">With ripe red lips it spake to me,<br/></span> <span class="i0">O voice, that always soothes and blesses!<br/></span> <span class="i0">While I, Philistine, felt to pray<br/></span> <span class="i0">That I might silence it with kisses.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">I’ve lost all this by my mistake,<br/></span> <span class="i0">I walked, you see, not circumspectly,<br/></span> <span class="i0">I pressed a claim for love’s sweet sake,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And friendship took to flight directly.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_218" id="page_218"></SPAN>{218}</span><br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And I am left to think with pain<br/></span> <span class="i2">How folly caused my loss and sorrow,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Had I my friendship back again<br/></span> <span class="i2">I’d do the very same to-morrow.<br/></span></div> </div></div> <p class="c"><ANTIMG src="images/deco.png" width-obs="25" alt="[Decorative image unavailable.]" /></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />