A Friend

I choose no friend as one may choose a glove, To use, hold in his hand, and cast aside When it is old; forgetting that awhile It served his purpose--neither more nor less Than others of its kind have served, and will: Nor as we in a grave or idle hour Take up a book and say: “This shall beguile My listlessness, or teach what I would know;” Then leave its crumpled pages on a shelf And go about the various ways of life.

More would I take my friend as one who finds A cool spring in the desert, where his cup, Filled to the brim, leaves gratitude behind; And though he wander far knows if at last His feet turn back along that self-same road The same good welcome waits him at the end: Or as those faces we behold in dreams; Haunting us, waking, with their strange, deep eyes That sting the soul into a thousand needs Finer and freer than it knew before.

He is my friend who tempts me ever on To high and higher; standing yet above With hand reached back, as one who knows the path Has stones a-many for the surest feet; Who weighs my weakness fairly with my strength And sets a better higher than my best; Bidding me work when others say “Well done!”

My friend is he who gives me larger faith In men and life and hope of final good; Who by the alchemy of his fine breadth Transmutes my doubt and pain and weariness Into peace and the pure gold of patience. The wind and stars, those old, old friends of mine, Are symbols of the human souls I love; Free as the wind is, high and pure and clear As shine the stars--so would I have my friend.