Old Friends
Old Friends
Original Text
W. J. Linton, Claribel and Other Poems
(London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1865): 174-75.
Internet Archive
1The old old friends!
2Some changed; some buried; some gone out of sight;
3Some enemies, and in this world's swift fight
4 No time to make amends.
5The old old friends--
6Where are they? Three are lying in one grave;
7And one from the far-off world on the daily wave
8 No loving message sends.
9The old dear friends!
10One passes daily; and one wears a mask;
11Another long estranged cares not to ask
12 Where causeless anger ends.
13The dear old friends,
14So many and so fond in days of youth!
15Alas that Faith can be divorced from Truth,
16 When love in severance ends.
17The old old friends!
18They hover round me still in evening shades:
19Surely they shall return when sunlight fades,
20 And life on God depends.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011
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