MY FRIENDS.
"My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day."
—Southey.
Some to and fro for converse flit
And on their friends intrude,
Or shun society and sit
In cheerless solitude;
But I can sit, when night descends,
At home among a thousand friends.
The garish day is left behind,
The scurry and the din;
The hours of toil are out of mind,
As if they had not been.
No thought of morrow that impends
Comes in between me and my friends.
We reck not of the flight of time,
To them a subject strange;
They pass their days in a sublime
Indifference to change:
Theirs is the life that never ends;
Immortal beings are my friends.
They toil not, neither do they spin;
Yet none is meanly drest;
And some are clad in costly skin,
And some in silken vest;
And everyone who sees commends
The decent habits of my friends.
And some are short, and some are tall;
Some portly, and some spare;
Here is a group of pygmies small,
A Tom Thumb family; there
A Brobdingnagian row extends,
The best-informed among my friends.
Wot one among them all is low,
A fellow to be spurned;
And none is ever rude, although
Their backs are often turned.
No observation that offends
Is dropped by any of my friends.
And some are steeped in classic lore;
Some brim with wisdom sage;
And some can trace a far-off shore,
Or paint a former age;
And each his talent freely lends,
For talented are all my friends.
Some tell of deeds and lives sublime
And triumphs over foes;
Some weave a spell of lofty rhyme,
Some charm with stately prose;
And here and there a mind unbends
Familiarly among my friends.