WITH the Renaissance, and the impetus it gave at that time to the study of Greek and Roman models, the exclusive domination of Christianity and the Church was broken. A literature of friendship along classic lines began to spring up. Montaigne (b. 1533) was saturated with classic learning. His essays were doubtless largely formed upon the model of Plutarch. His friendship with Stephen de la Boëtie was evidently of a romantic and absorbing character. It is referred to in the following passage by William Hazlitt; and the description of it occupies a large part of Montaigne's Essay on Friendship. MONTAIGNE AND STEPHEN DE LA BOËTIE "The most important event of his counsellor's life at Bordeaux was the friendship which he there formed with Stephen de la Boëtie, an affection which makes a streak of light in modern biography almost as beautiful as that left us by Lord Brook and Sir Philip Sydney. Our essayist and his friend esteemed, before they saw, each other. La Boëtie had written a little work 1 in which
The following is from Montaigne's Essay, bk. I, ch. xxvii:-- "As to marriage, besides that it is a covenant, the making of which is only free, but the continuance in it forced and compelled, having another dependence than that of our own free will, and a bargain moreover commonly contracted to other ends, there happen a thousand intricacies in it to unravel, enough to break the thread, and to divert the current, of a lively affection: whereas friendship "Common friendships will admit of division, one may love the beauty of this, the good humor of that person, the liberality of a third, the paternal PHILIP SIDNEY, born 1554, was remarkable for his strong personal attachments. Chief among his allies were his school-mate and distant relative, Fulke Greville (born in the same year as himself), and his college friend Edward Dyer (also about his own age). He wrote youthful verses to both of them. The following, according to the fashion of the age, are in the form of an invocation to the pastoral god Pan:-- "Only for my two loves' sake, An interesting friendship existed also between Sidney and the well-known French Protestant, Hubert Languet--many years his senior--whose conversation and correspondence helped much in the formation of Sidney's character. These two had shared together the perils of the massacre of S. Bartholomew, and had both escaped from France across the Rhine to Germany, where they lived in close intimacy at Frankfort for a length of time; and after this a warm friendship and steady correspondence--varied by occasional meetings--continued between the two until Languet's death. Languet had been Professor of Civil Law at Padua, and from 1550 forwards was recognized as one of the leading political agents of the Protestant Powers. "The elder man immediately discerned in Sidney a youth of no common quality, and the attachment he conceived for him savored of romance. We possess a long series of Latin letters from Languet to his friend, which breathe the tenderest spirit of affection, mingled with wise counsel and ever watchful thought for the young man's higher interests. . . . There must have been something inexplicably attractive in his [Sidney's] Of this relation Fox Bourne says:-- "No love-oppressed youth can write with more earnest passion and more fond solicitude, or can be troubled with more frequent fears and more causeless jealousies, than Languet, at this time 55 years old, shows in his letters to Sidney, now 19." IT may be appropriate here to introduce two or three sonnets from Michel Angelo (b. 1475). Michel Angelo, one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest, artist of the Italian Renaissance, was deeply imbued with the Greek spirit. His conception of Love was close along the line of Plato's. For him the body was the symbol, the expression, the dwelling place of some divine beauty. The body may be loved, but it should only be loved as a symbol, not for itself. Diotima in the Symposium has said that in our mortal loves we first come to recognize (dimly) the divine form of beauty which is Eternal. Maximus Tyrius (Dissert. xxvi. 8) commenting on this, confirms it, saying that nowhere else but in the human form, "the
And Giordano Bruno (b. 1550) as a later date wrote as follows:-- "All the loves--if they be heroic and not purely animal, or what is called natural, and slaves to generation as instruments in some way of nature--have for object the divinity, and tend towards divine beauty, which first is communicated to, and shines in, souls, and from them or rather through them is communicated to bodies; whence it is that well-ordered affection loves the body or corporeal beauty, insomuch as it is an indication of beauty of spirit." Gli Eroici Furori (dial. iii. 13), trans. L. Williams. THE labors of Von Scheffler and others have now pretty conclusively established that the love-poems of Michel Angelo were for the most part written to male friends--though this fact was disguised by the pious frauds of his nephew, who edited them in the first instance. Following are three of his sonnets, translated by J. A. Symonds. A CHE PIU DEBB'IO "Why should I seek to ease intense desire Therefore because I cannot shun the blow NON VIDER GLI OCCHI MIEI "No mortal thing enthralled these longing eyes VEGGIO NEL TUO BEL VISO "From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord, Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth, RICHARD BARNFIELD, one of the Elizabethan singers (b. 1574) wrote a long poem, dedicated to "The Ladie Penelope Rich" and entitled "The Affectionate Shepheard," which he describes as "an imitation of Virgil in the 2nd Eclogue, of Alexis." I quote the first two stanzas:-- I "Scarce had the morning starre hid from the light II "If it be sin to love a sweet-fac'd Boy, These stanzas, and the following three sonnets (also by Barnfield) from a series addressed to a youth, give a fair sample of a considerable class of Elizabethan verses, in which classic conceits were mingled with a certain amount of real feeling:-- SONNET IV "Two stars there are in one fair firmament By these two stars my life is only led, SONNET XVIII "Not Megabetes, nor Cleonymus SONNET XIX "Ah no; nor I my selfe: tho' my pure love And as I love thee more than any Creature FRANCIS BACON'S essay Of Friendship is known to everybody. Notwithstanding the somewhat cold and pragmatic style and genius of the author, the subject seems to inspire him with a certain enthusiasm; and some good things are said. "Certainly if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto, are cannibals of their own hearts; but one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship) which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend worketh two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halfs; for there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more, and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less." Essay 27, Of Friendship. SHAKESPEARE'S sonnets have been much discussed, and surprise and even doubt have been expressed as to their having been addressed (the first 126 of them) to a man friend; but no one who reads them with open mind can well doubt this conclusion; nor be surprised at it, who knows anything of Elizabethan life and literature. "Were it not for the fact," says F. T. Furnivall, "that many critics really deserving the name of Shakespeare students, and not Shakespeare fools, have held the Sonnets to be merely dramatic, I could not have conceived that poems so intensely and evidently autobiographic and self-revealing, poems so one with the spirit and inner meaning of Shakespeare's growth and life, could ever have been conceived to be other than what they are the records of his own loves and fears." SONNET XVIII "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? SONNET XX "A woman's face, with Nature's own hand painted, And for a woman wert thou first created, "To me, fair friend, you never can be old, Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial hand, SONNET CVIII "What's in the brain that ink may character, So that eternal love, in love's fresh case, THAT Shakespeare, when the drama needed it, could fully and warmly enter into the devotion which one man may feel for another, as well as into the tragedy which such devotion may entail, is shown in his Merchant of Venice by the figure of Antonio, over whom from the first line of the play ("In sooth I know not why I am so sad") there hangs a shadow of destiny. The following lines are from Act iv. sc. 1:-- Antonio: "Commend me to your honorable wife; Bassanio: Antonio, I am married to a wife, We may also, in this connection, quote his Henry the Fifth (act iv. scene 6) for the deaths of the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk at the battle of Agincourt. Exeter, addressing Henry, says:-- "Suffolk first died; and York, all haggled over, SIR THOMAS BROWNE BEAUMONT and Fletcher are two names which time and immortal friendship have sealed in one. Francis Beaumont was son of a judge, and John Fletcher, who was some four or five years the elder of the two, son of a bishop. The one went to Oxford, the other to Cambridge. Both took to writing at an early age; they probably J. St. L. Strachey, in his introduction to the works of Beaumont and Fletcher in the Mermaid Series, says:-- "In the whole range of English literature, search it from Chaucer till to-day, there is no figure more fascinating or more worthy of attention than 'the mysterious double personality' of Beaumont and Fletcher. Whether we bow to the sentiment of the first Editor, who, though he knew the secret of the poets, 'yet since never parted while they lived' conceived it not equitable to 'separate their ashes,' and so refuse to think of them apart; whether we adopt the legendary union of the comrade-poets who dwelt on the Bankside, who lived and worked together, their thoughts no less in common than the cloak and bed o'er which tradition has grown fond; whether George Varley, in his Introduction to the works of B. and F. (London, E. Moxon, 1839), says:-- "The story of their common life, which scandalizes some biographers, contains much that is agreeable to me, as offering a picture of perfect union whose heartiness excuses its homeliness . . . but when critics would explain away the community of cloak and clothes by accident or slander, methinks their fastidiousness exceeds their good feeling." Beaumont was a man of great personal beauty and charm. Ben Jonson was much attracted to him. Fletcher delighted to do him honor and to put his name first on their title page; though it is The following lines were written by Fletcher on the death of Beaumont:-- "Come, sorrow, come I bring all thy cries, THE devotion of Vauvenargues to his friend De Seytres is immortalized by the éloge he wrote on the occasion of the latter's death. V., a youth of noble family, born in S. France in 1715, "And so Hippolyte," he continues, "I was destined to be the survivor in our friendship--just when I was hoping that it would mitigate all the sufferings and ennui of my life even to my latest breath. At the moment when my heart, full of security, placed blind confidence in thy strength and youth, and abandoned itself to gladness--O Misery! in that moment a mighty hand was extinguishing the sources of life in thy blood. Death was creeping into thy heart, and harboring in thy bosom! . . O pardon me once more; for never canst thou have doubted the depth of my attachment. I loved thee before I was able to know thee. I have never loved but thee . . . I was ignorant of thy very name and life, but my heart adored thee, spoke with thee, saw thee and sought thee in solitude. Thou knewest me but for a moment; and when we did become acquainted, already a thousand times had I paid homage in secret to thy virtues. . . . Shade worthy of heaven, whither hast thou fled! Do my sighs reach thee? I tremble--O abyss profound, O woe, O death, O grave! Dark veil and viewless night, and mystery of Eternity!" (It is said that Vauvenargues thought more of this memorial inscription to his friend than of any other of his works, and constantly worked at and perfected it.) WILLIAM PENN (b. 1644) the founder of Pennsylvania, and of Philadelphia, "The city of brotherly love" was a great believer in friendship. He says in his Fruits of Solitude:-- "A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably. . . . In short, choose a friend as thou dost a wife, till death separate you. . . . Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their friendship. . . . This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal." IT may be worth while here to insert two passages from Macaulay's History of England. The first deals with the remarkable intimacy between the Young Prince William of Orange and "a gentleman of his household" named Bentinck. William's escape from a malignant attack of small-pox "was attributed partly to his own singular equanimity, and partly to the intrepid and indefatigable friendship of Bentinck. From the hands of The second passage describes the devotion of the Princess Anne (daughter of James II and afterwards Queen Anne) to Lady Churchill--a devotion which had considerable influence on the political situation. "It is a common observation that differences of taste, understanding, and disposition are no impediments to friendship, and that the closest intimacies often exist between minds, each of which supplies what is wanting in the other. Lady Churchill was loved and even worshipped by Anne. The princess could not live apart from the object of her romantic fondness. She married, and was a faithful and even an affectionate wife; but Prince George, a dull man, whose chief pleasures were derived from his dinner and his bottle, acquired over her no influence comparable to that exercised by her female friend, and soon gave himself THAT the tradition of Greek thought was not quite obliterated in England by the Puritan movement is shown by the writings of Archbishop Potter, who speaks with approval of friendship as followed among the Greeks, "not only in private, but by the public allowance and encouragement of their laws; for they thought there could be no means more effectual to excite their youth to noble undertakings, nor any greater security to their commonwealths, than this generous passion." He then quotes Athenæus, saying that "free commonwealths and all those states that consulted the advancement of their own honor, seem to have been unanimous in establishing laws to encourage and reward it." John Potter, Antiquities of Greece, 1698. The eighteenth century however in England, with its leaning towards formalism, was perhaps not favorable to the understanding of the Greek spirit. At any rate there is not much to show in that direction. In Germany the classical tradition in art was revived by Raphael Mengs, while "Almost as first there sprang up, on Winckelmann's side, an attachment as romantic, emotional and passionate as love. In a letter to his friend he said, 'From the first moment an indescribable attraction towards you, excited by something more than form and feature, caused me to catch an echo of that harmony which passes human understanding and which is the music of the everlasting concord of things. . . . I was aware of the deep consent of our spirits, the instant I saw you., And in a later letter: 'No name by which I might call you would be sweet enough or sufficient for my love; all that I could say would be far too feeble to give utterance to my heart and soul. Truly friendship came from heaven and was not created by mere human impulses. . . . My one friend, I love you more than any living thing, and time nor chance nor age can ever lessen this love." Ludwig Frey, Der Eros und die Kunst, Leipzig, 1898, p. 211. GOETHE, that universal genius, has some excellent thoughts on this subject; speaking of Winckelmann he says:-- "The affinities of human beings in Antiquity give evidence of an important distinction between ancient and modern times. The relation to women, which among us has become so tender and full of meaning, hardly aspired in those days beyond the limits of vulgar necessity. The relation of parents to their children seems in some respects to have been tenderer. More to them than all other feelings was the friendship between persons of the male sex (though female friends, too, like Chloris and Thyia, were inseparable, even in Hades). In these cases of union between two youths, the passionate fulfilment of loving duties, the joys of inseparableness, the devotion of one for the other, the unavoided companionship in death, fill us with astonishment; indeed one feels oneself ashamed when poets, historians, philosophers and orators overwhelm us with legends, anecdotes, sentiments. and ideas, containing such meaning and feeling. Winckelmann felt himself born for a friendship of this kind--not only as capable of it, but in the highest degree in need of it; he became conscious of his true self only under the form of friendship." Goethe on Winckelmann. Some of Goethe's poems further illustrate this subject. In the Saki Nameh of his West-Oestlichen Divan he has followed the style of a certain class of Persian love-songs. The following poem is from a Cupbearer to his Master:-- "In the market-place appearing Yet I love thee, when thou printest Rhymes on rhymes fair meaning carry, JOHANN GOTTFRIED VON HERDER (1744-1803) as theologian, philosopher, friend of Goethe, Court preacher at Weimar, and author of Ideas on the Philosophy of History, has had a great and enduring reputation. The following extract is from the just-mentioned book:-- SCHILLER, the great German poet, had an enthusiastic appreciation of friendship-love, as can be seen from his poems, "Freundschaft" and "Die Burgschaft," and others of his writings. His tragedy Don Karlos turns upon the death of one friend for the sake of another. The young Infanta of Spain, Don Karlos, alienated by the severities of his father, Phillip II, enters into plots and intrigues, from the consequences of which he is only saved by his devoted companion, the Marquis of Posa, who, by making himself out the guilty party, dies in the Prince's stead. Early in the play (Act I., Scene ii.) the attachment between the two is outlined:-- Karlos. Oh, if indeed 'tis true-- Marquis. A truce, O Prince, to all these tales of childhood, Karlos. And this from thee indeed I did not merit. (The story is then related of how as a boy he took on himself the blame for a misdemeanor of Roderick's, and was severely punished by his royal father)-- Under the pitiless strokes my blood flowed red; Marquis (giving his hand.) (The hour comes, when Roderick takes on himself the blame for an intrigue of Don Karlos with the Queen and William of Orange. He writes a letter to the latter, and allows it purposely to fall into the King's hands. He is assassinated by order of the King; and the following speech over his body (Act V., Scene iv.) is made to the King by Don Karlos, who thenceforth abjures all love except for the memory of his friend.) Karlos (to the King.) THERE is little, I believe, in the historical facts relating to Don Karlos to justify this tale of friendship; but there seems great probability that the incidents were transferred by There is also in the same collection a long and beautiful ode "To the shades of Cesarion," of "O God! how hard the word of Fate! ELISAR VON KUPFFER, in the introduction to his Anthology, from which I have already quoted a few extracts, speaks at some length on the great ethical and political significance of a loving comradeship. He says:-- "In open linkage and attachment to each other ought youth to rejoice in youth. In attachment to another, one loses the habit of thinking only of self. In the love and tender care and instruction that the youth receives from his lover he learns from boyhood up to recognize the good of self-sacrifice and devotion; and in the love which he shows, whether in the smaller or the greater offerings of an intimate friendship, he accustoms himself to self-sacrifice for another. In this way the young man is early nurtured into a member of the Community--to a useful member and not one who has self and only self in mind. And how much closer thus does unit grow to unit, till indeed the whole comes to feel itself a whole! . . . "The close relationship between two men has this further result--that folk instinctively and FRIEDRICH RUCKERT (1788-1866), Professor of Oriental Literature in Berlin, wrote verses in memory of his friend Joseph Kopp:-- "How shall I know myself without thee, "Never again, out there in space, . . . . . . . And the following are by Joseph Kitir, an Austrian poet:-- "No fair lime tree's roofing shade "Therefore shalt thou, Love so rare COUNT AUGUST VON PLATEN (born at Ansbach in Bavaria, 1796) was in respect of style one of the most finished and perfect of German poets. His nature (which was refined and self-controlled) led him from the first to form the most romantic attachments with men. He freely and openly expressed his feelings in his verses; of which a great number are practically Platen, however, was unfortunate in his affairs of the heart, and there is a refrain of suffering in his poems which comes out characteristically in the following sonnet:-- "Since pain is life and life is only pain, Who prays each dizzy lightning-flash to end him, One of Platen's sonnets deals with an incident, referred to in an earlier page, namely, the death of the poet Pindar in the theatre, in the arms of his young friend Theoxenos:-- "Oh I when I die, would I might fade away Long at the play, hearing sweet Harmony, THE correspondence of Richard Wagner discloses the existence of a very warm friendship between him and Ludwig II, the young king of Bavaria. Ludwig as a young man appears "He, the king, loves me, and with the deep feeling and glow of a first love; he perceives and knows everything about me, and understands me as my own soul. He wants me to stay with him always. . . . I am to be free and my own master, not his music-conductor--only my very self and his friend." Letters to Mme. Eliza Wille, 4th May, 1864. "I hope now for a long period to gain strength again by quiet work. This is made possible for me by the love of an unimaginably beautiful and thoughtful being: it seems that it had to be even so greatly gifted a man and one so destined for me, as this young King of Bavaria. What he is to me no one can imagine. My guardian! In his love I completely rest and fortify myself towards the completion of my task." Letter to his brother-in-law, 10th Sept., 1865. BELOW are some of the actual letters of Ludwig to Wagner. (See Prof. C. Beyer's book, Ludwig II, König von Bayern.) "Dear Friend, O I see clearly that your sufferings are deep-rooted! You tell me, beloved friend, that you have looked deep into the hearts Unto death, your faithful friend, 15th May, 186S. "Purschling, 4th Aug., 1865. "My one, my much-loved Friend,--You express to me your sorrow that, as it seems to you, each one of our last meetings has only brought pain and anxiety to me.--Must I then remind my loved one of Brynhilda's words?--Not only in gladness and enjoyment, but in suffering also Love makes man blest. . . . When does my Unto death your own, your faithful "Hohenschwangau, 2nd Nov., 1865. "My one Friend, my ardently beloved! This afternoon, at 3.30, I returned from a glorious tour in Switzerland! How this land delighted me!--There I found your dear letter; deepest warmest thanks for the same. With new and burning enthusiasm has it filled me; I see that the beloved marches boldly and confidently forward, towards our great and eternal goal. "All hindrances I will victoriously like a hero overcome. I am entirely at thy disposal; let me now dutifully prove it.--Yes, we must meet and speak together. I will banish all evil clouds; Love has strength for all. You are the star that shines upon my life, and the sight of you ever wonderfully strengthens me.--Ardently I long for you, O my presiding Saint, to whom I pray! I should be immensely pleased to see my friend here in about a week; oh, we have plenty to say! Ever, ever your devoted IN these letters we see chiefly, of course, the passionate sentiments of which Ludwig was capable; but that Wagner fully understood the feeling and appreciated it may be gathered from various passages in his published writings--such as the following, in which he seeks to show how the devotion of comradeship became the chief formative influence of the Spartan State:-- "This beauteous naked man is the kernel of all Spartanhood; from genuine delight in the beauty of the most perfect human body--that of the male--arose that spirit of comradeship which pervades and shapes the whole economy of the Spartan State: This love of man to man, in its primitive purity, proclaims itself as the noblest and least selfish utterance of man's sense of beauty, for it teaches man to sink and merge his entire self in the object of his affection"; and again:--"The higher element of that love of man to man consisted even in this: that it excluded the motive FRNST HÆCKEL, in his "Visit to Ceylon,", describes the devotion entertained for him by his Rodiya serving-boy at Belligam, near Galle. The keeper of the rest-house at Belligam was "Among the many beautiful figures which move in the foreground of my memories of the paradise of Ceylon, Ganymede remains one of my dearest favorites. Not only did he fulfil his duties with the greatest attention and conscientiousness, but he developed a personal attachment and devotion to me which touched me deeply. The poor boy, as a miserable outcast of the Rodiya caste, had been from his birth the object of the deepest contempt of his fellow-men, and subjected to every sort of brutality and ill-treatment. With the single exception of old Socrates, who was not too gentle with him either, no one perhaps had ever cared for him in any way. He was evidently as much surprised as delighted to find me willing to be kind to him from the first. . . . I owe many beautiful and valuable contributions to my museum to Ganymede's unfailing zeal and dexterity. With the keen eye, the neat hand, and the supple agility of the Cinghalese youth, he could catch a fluttering moth or a gliding fish with equal promptitude; and his nimbleness was really amazing, when, out hunting, he climbed the tall trees like a cat, or scrambled through the densest jungle to recover the prize I had killed." Hæckel stayed some weeks in and around Belligain; and continues (p. 272):-- "On my return to Belgium I had to face one of the hardest duties of my whole stay in Ceylon: to tear myself away from this lovely spot of earth, where I had spent six of the happiest and most interesting weeks in my life. . . . But hardest of all was the parting from my faithful Ganymede; the poor lad wept bitterly, and implored me to take him with me to Europe. In vain had I assured him that it was impossible, and told him of our chill climate and dull skies. He clung to my knees and declared that he would follow me unhesitatingly wherever I would take him. I was at last almost obliged to use force to free myself from his embrace. I got into the carriage which was waiting, and as I waved a last farewell to my good brown friends, I almost felt as if I had been expelled from Paradise." WE may close this record of celebrated Germans with the name of K. H. Ulrichs, a Hanoverian by birth, who occupied for a long time an official position in the revenue department at Vienna, and who became well known about 1866 through his writings on the subject of friendship. "This picture (he says), put away from me, as it was, a hundred times, came again a hundred times before the eyes of my soul. But of course for the origin of my special temperament it is in no way responsible. It only woke up what was already slumbering there--a thing which might have been done equally well by something else." From that time forward the boy worshipped with a kind of romantic devotion elder friends, young men in the prime of early manhood; and later still his writings threw a flood of light on the "urning" temperament--as he called it--of which he was himself so marked an example. Some of Ulrich's verses are scattered among his prose writings:-- To his friend Eberhard "And so farewell! perchance on Earth And this:-- "It was the day of our first meeting-- There in the grove at evening's hour T0 return to England. With the beginning of the 1 9th century we find two great poets, Byron and Shelley, both interested in and even writing in a romantic strain on the subject in question. Byron's attachment, when at Cambridge, to Eddleston the chorister, a youth two years younger than himself, is well known. In a youthful letter "I rejoice to hear you are interested in my protégé; he has been my almost constant associate since October, 1805, when I entered Trinity College. His voice first attracted my attention, his countenance fixed it, and his manners attached me to him for ever. He departs for a mercantile house in town in October, and we shall probably not meet till the expiration of my minority, when I shall leave to his decision either entering as a partner through my interest or residing with me altogether. Of course he would in his present frame of mind prefer the latter, but he may alter his opinion previous to that period; however, he shall have his choice. I certainly love him more than any human being, and neither time nor distance have had the least effect on my (in general) changeable disposition. In short we shall put Lady E. Butler and Miss Ponsonby to the blush, Pylades and Orestes out of countenance, and want nothing but a catastrophe like Nisus and Euryalus to give Jonathan and David the 'go by.' He certainly is more attached to me than even I am in return. During the whole of my residence at Cambridge we met every day, summer and winter, without passing one tiresome moment, and separated each time with increasing reluctance." Eddleston gave Byron a cornelian (brooch-pin) which Byron prized very much, and is said to have kept all his life. He probably refers to it, and to the inequality of condition between him and Eddleston, in the following stanza from his poem, The Adieu, written about this time:-- "And thou, my friend, whose gentle love THE Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby mentioned in the above letter were at that time living at Llangollen, in Wales, and were known as the "Ladies of Llangollen," their romantic attachment to each other having already become proverbial. When Miss Ponsonby was seventeen, and Lady E. Butler some twenty years older, they had run away from their respective and respectable homes in Ireland, and taking a cottage at Llangollen lived there, inseparable AS to the allusion to Nisus and Euryalus, Byron's paraphrase of the episode (from the 9th book of Virgil's Æneid) serves to show his interest in it:-- "Nisus, the guardian of the portal, stood, [The two then carry out a daring raid on the enemy, in which Euryalus is slain. Nisus, coming to his rescue is--after performing prodigies of valor--slain too.] "Thus Nisus all his fond affection proved-- BYRON'S "Death of Calmar and Orla: an Imitation of Ossian," is, like his "Nisus and Euryalus," a story of two hero-friends who, refusing to be separated, die together in battle:-- "In Morven dwelt the chief; a beam of war to Fingal. His steps in the field were marked in blood. Lochlin's sons had fled before his angry spear; but mild was the eye of Calmar; "Whose yellow locks wave o'er the breast of a chief? Bright as the gold of the stranger they mingle with the dark hair of his friend. 'Tis Calmar: he lies on the bosom of Orla. Theirs is one stream of blood. Fierce is the look of gloomy Orla. He breathes not, but his eye is still aflame. It glares in death unclosed. His hand is grasped in Calmar's; but Calmar lives! He lives, though low. 'Rise,' said the King, 'Rise, son of Mora: 'tis mine to heal the wounds of heroes. Calmar may yet bound on the hills of Morven.' "'Never more shall Calmar chase the deer of Morven with Orla,' said the hero. 'What were Byron's friendships, in fact, with young men were so marked that Moore in his Life and Letters of Lord Byron seems to have felt it necessary to mention and, to some extent, to explain them:-- "During his stay in Greece (in 1810) we find him forming one of those extraordinary friendships-if attachment to persons so interior to himself can be called by that name--of which I have already mentioned two or three instances in his younger days, and in which the pride of being a protector and the pleasure of exciting gratitude seem to have contributed to his mind the chief, pervading charm. The person whom he now adopted in this manner, and from similar feelings to those which had inspired his early attachments to the cottage boy near Newstead and the young chorister at Cambridge, was a Greek youth, named Nicolo Giraud, the son, I believe, of a widow lady SHELLEY, in his fragmentary Essay on Friendship--stated by his friend Hogg to have been written "not long before his death" says:-- "I remember forming an attachment of this kind at school. I cannot recall to my memory the precise epoch at which this took place; but I imagine it must have been at the age of eleven or twelve. The object of these sentiments was a boy about my own age, of a character eminently generous, brave and gentle, and the elements of human feeling seemed to have been, from his birth, genially compounded within him. There was a delicacy and a simplicity in his manners, inexpressibly attractive. It has never been my fortune to meet with him since my schoolboy days; but either I confound my present recollections with the delusions of past feelings, or he is now a source of honor and utility to every one around him. The tones of his voice were so soft and winning, that every word pierced into m heart; and their pathos was so deep that in listening to him the tears have involuntarily gushed from my eyes. Such was the being for whom I first experienced the sacred sentiments of friendship." WITH this passage we may compare the following from Leigh Hunt:-- "If I had reaped no other benefit from Christ Hospital, the school would be ever dear to me from the recollection of the friendships I formed in it, and of the first heavenly taste it gave me of that most spiritual of the affections. . . . If ever I tasted a disembodied transport on earth, it was in those friendships which I entertained at school, before I dreamt of any maturer feeling. I shall never forget the impression it made on me. I loved my friend for his gentleness, his candor, his truth, his good repute, his freedom even from my own livelier manner, his calm and reasonable kindness. It was not any particular talent that attracted me to him, or anything striking whatsoever. I should say, in one word, it was his goodness. I doubt whether he ever had a conception of a tithe of the regard and respect I entertained for him; and I smile to think of the perplexity (though he never showed it) which he probably felt sometimes at my enthusiastic expressions; for I thought him a kind of angel. It is no exaggeration to say, that, take away the unspiritual part of it--the genius and the knowledge--and there is no height of conceit indulged in by the most romantic character in Shakespeare, which surpassed "I experienced this delightful affection towards three successive school-fellows, till two of them had for some time gone out into the world and forgotten me; but it grew less with each, and in more than one instance became rivalled by a new set of emotions, especially in regard to the last, for I fell in love with his sister--at least, I thought so. But on the occurrence of her death, not long after, I was startled at finding myself assume an air of greater sorrow than I felt, and at being willing to be relieved by the sight of the first pretty face that turned towards me. . . . My friend, who died himself not long after his quitting the University, was of a German family in the service of the court, very refined and musical." Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, Smith and Elder, 1870, p. 75. ON this subject of boy-friendships and their intensity Lord Beaconsfield has, in Coningsby, a quite romantic passage, which notwithstanding its sentimental setting may be worth quoting; because, after all, it signalizes an often forgotten or unconsidered aspect of school-life:-- EDWARD FITZGERALD, the interpreter and translator of Omar Khayyam, was a man of the deepest feeling and sensibility, with a special gift for friendship. Men like Tennyson and Thackeray declared that they loved him best of all their friends. He himself said in one of his letters, "My friendships are more like loves." A. C. Benson, his biographer, writes of him:-- "He was always taking fancies, and once under the spell he could see no faults in his friend. His friendship for Browne arose out of one of these romantic impulses. So too his affection for Posh, the boatman; for Cowell, and for Alfred Smith, The friendship with Posh, the fisherman, at Lowestoft and at Woodbridge, lasted over many years. Fitzgerald had a herring-lugger built for him, which he called the Meum and Tuum, and in which they had many a sail together. Benson, speaking of their first meeting, says:-- "In the same year [1864] came another great friendship. He made the acquaintance of a stalwart sailor named Joseph Fletcher, commonly called Posh. It was at Lowestoft that he was found, where Fitzgerald used, as he wrote in 1850, 'to wander about the shore at night longing for some fellow to accost me who might give some promise of filling up a very vacant place in my heart.' Posh had seen the melancholy figure wandering about, and years after, when Fitz used to ask him why he had not been merciful enough to speak to him, Posh would reply that he had not thought of it becoming. Posh was, in Fitzgerald's own words, 'a man of the finest Saxon Ibid., ch. iii. ALFRED TENNYSON, in his great poem, In Memoriam, published about the middle of the 19th century, gives superb expression to his love for his lost friend, Arthur Hallam. Reserved, dignified, in sustained meditation and tender sentiment, yet half revealing here and there a more passionate feeling; expressing in simplest words the most difficult and elusive thoughts (e.g., Cantos 128 and 129), as well as the most intimate and sacred moods of the soul; it is indeed a great work of art. Naturally, being such, it was roundly abused by the critics on its first appearance. The Times solemnly rebuked its language as unfitted for any but amatory tenderness, and because young Hallam was a barrister spent much wit upon the poet's "Amaryllis of the Chancery bar." Tennyson himself, speaking of In Memoriam, CANTO XIII "Tears of the widower, when he sees, Which weep a loss for ever new, Which weep the comrade of my choice, Come Time, and teach me, many years, My fancies time to rise on wing, "’Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand 'Tis little; but it looks in truth Come then, pure hands, and bear the head Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, That dies not, but endures with pain, CANTO LIX "If, in thy second state sublime, CANTO CXXVII "Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, Known and unknown, human, divine! Strange friend, past, present and to be; CANTO CXXVIII "Thy voice is on the rolling air; FOLLOWING is a little poem by Robert Browning, entitled May and Death, which may well be placed near the stanzas of In Memoriam:-- "I wish that when you died last May, A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps! BETWEEN Browning and Whitman we may insert a few lines from R. W. Emerson:-- "The only way to have a friend is to be one. . . . In the last analysis love is only the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men. Men have sometimes exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify that in their friend each loved his own soul. "The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less easy to establish it with flesh and blood. . . . Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now acting, These also from Henry D. Thoreau:-- "No word is oftener on the lips of men than Friendship, and indeed no thought is more familiar to their aspirations. All men are dreaming of it, and its drama, which is always a tragedy, is enacted daily. It is the secret of the universe. You may thread the town, you may wander the country, and none shall ever speak of it, yet thought is everywhere busy about it, and the idea of what is possible in this respect affects our behavior towards all new men and women, and a great many old ones. Nevertheless I can remember only two or three essays on this subject in all literature. . . . To say that a man is your friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of friendship, as that the friend can assist in time of need, by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel; but he who foresees such advantages in this relation proves himself blind to its real advantage, or indeed wholly inexperienced in the relation itself. . . . What is commonly called Friendship is only a little more honor among rogues. But sometimes we are said to love another, that is, to stand in a true relation to him, so that we give the best to, and receive the best from, him. Between whom there is hearty truth there is love; and in I CONCLUDE this collection with a few quotations from Whitman, for whom "the love of comrades" perhaps stands as the most intimate part of his message to the world--"Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting." Whitman, by his great power, originality and initiative, as well as by his deep insight and wide vision, is in many ways the inaugurator of a new era to mankind; and it is especially interesting to find that this idea of comradeship, and of its establishment as a social institution, plays so important a part with him. We have seen that in the Greek age, and more or less generally in the ancient and pagan world, comradeship was an institution; we have seen that in Christian and modern times, though existent, it was socially denied and ignored, and indeed to a great extent fell under a kind of ban; and now Whitman's attitude "It is to the development, identification, and general prevalence of that fervid comradeship (the adhesive love, at least rivalling the amative love hitherto possessing imaginative literature, if not going beyond it), that I look for the counterbalance and offset of our materialistic and vulgar American Democracy, and for the spiritualization thereof. Many will say it is a dream, and will not follow my inferences; but I confidently expect a time when there will be seen, running like a half-hid warp through all the myriad audible and visible worldly interests of America, threads of manly friendship, fond and loving, pure and sweet, strong and lifelong, carried to degrees hitherto unknown--not only giving tone to individual character, and making it unprecedently emotional, muscular, heroic, and refined, but having deepest relations to general politics. I say Democracy
The three following poems are taken from Leaves of Grass:-- "Recorders ages hence, "When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow'd, "I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions, 113:1 "De la Servitude Volontaire." 189:1 As Whitman in this connection (like Tennyson in connection with In Memoriam) is sure to be accused of morbidity, it may be worth while to insert the following note from In re Walt Whitman, p. 115, "Dr. Drinkard in 1870, when Whitman broke down from rupture of a small blood-vessel in the brain, wrote to a Philadelphia doctor detailing Whitman's case, and stating that he was a man 'with the most natural habits, bases, and organisation he had ever seen."'THE RENAISSANCE AND MODERN TIMES
MONTAIGNE ON FRIENDSHIP
SIDNEY, GREVILLE AND DYER
In whose love I pleasure take;
Only two do me delight
With their ever-pleasing sight; PHILIP SIDNEY AND HUBERT LANGUET
MICHELANGELO
GIORDANO BRUNO
MICHELANGELO'S SONNETS
With still more tears and windy words of grief,
When heaven, or late or soon, sends no relief
To souls whom love hath robed around with fire.
Why need my aching heart to death aspire,
When all must die? Nay death beyond belief
Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief,
Since in my sum of woes all joys expire!
I rather seek, say who must rule my breast,
Gliding between her gladness and her woe?
If only chains and bands can make me blest,
No marvel if alone and bare I go
An arméd Knight's captive and slave confessed."
When perfect peace in thy fair face I found;
But far within, where all is holy ground,
My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:
For she was born with God in Paradise;
Nor all the shows of beauty shed around
That which no mortal tongue can rightly say;
The soul imprisoned in her house of clay,
Holpen by thee to God hath often soared:
And tho' the vulgar, vain, malignant horde
Attribute what their grosser wills obey,
Yet shall this fervent homage that I pay,
This love, this faith, pure joys for us afford.
Resemble for the soul that rightly sees,
That source of bliss divine which gave us birth:
Nor have we first fruits or remembrances
Of heaven elsewhere. Thus, loving loyally,
I rise to God and make death sweet by thee."
Heaven's crimson Canopie with stars bespangled,
But I began to rue th' unhappy sight
Of that fair boy that had my heart intangled;
Cursing the Time, the Place, the sense, the sin;
I came, I saw, I view'd, I slippèd in.
(Whose amber locks trust up in golden tramels
Dangle adown his lovely cheeks with joye
When pearle and flowers his faire haire enamels)
If it be sin to love a lovely Lad,
Oh then sinne I, for whom my soule is sad."
(Of some intitled Ganymede's sweet face)
Which other stars in brightness do disgrace,
As much as Po in cleanness passeth Trent.
Nor are they common-natur'd stars; for why,
These stars when other shine vaile their pure light,
And when all other vanish out of sight
They add a glory to the world's great eie:
In them I place my joy, in them my pleasure,
Love's piercing darts and Nature's precious treasure,
With their sweet food my fainting soul is fed:
Then when my sunne is absent from my sight
How can it chuse (with me) but be darke night?"
(Of whom great Plutarch makes such mention,
Praysing their faire with rare invention),
As Ganymede were halfe so beauteous.
They onely pleased the eies of two great kings,
But all the world at my love stands amazed,
Nor one that on his angel's face hath gazed,
But (ravisht with delight) him presents bring:
(Sweete Ganymede) to thee hath still been pure,
And ev'n till my last gaspe shall aie endure,
Could ever thy obdurate beuty move:
Then cease, oh goddesse sonne (for sure thou art
A Goddesse sonne that can resist desire),
Cease thy hard heart, and entertain love's fire
Within thy sacred breast: by Nature's art.
(Love thee, because thy beautie is divine,
Love thee, because my selfe, my soule, is thine:
Wholie devoted to thy lovely feature),
Even so of all the vowels, I and U
Are dearest unto me, as doth ensue."FRANCIS BACON ON FRIENDSHIP
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Some time too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes, and women's souls amazeth;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure."
For as you were when first your eye, I ey'd ,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters' cold
Have from the forest shook three summers' pride;
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons I have seen;
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived;
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead."
Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?
What's new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o'er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou 'mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
Weighs not the dust and injury of age;
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, MERCHANT OF VENICE
Tell her the process of Antonio's end;
Say how I loved you, speak me fair in death;
And when the tale is told, bid her be judge,
Whether Bassanio had not once a love.
Repent not you that you shall lose your friend,
And he repents not that he pays your debt;
For, if the Jew do cut but deep enough,
I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.
Who is as dear to me as life itself;
But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
Are not with me esteem'd above thy life: HENRY THE FIFTH
Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep'd,
And takes him b y the beard, kisses the gashes,
That bloodily did yawn upon his face;
He cries aloud,--'Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!
My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:
Tarry, sweet soul, for min; then fly abreast,
As in this glorious and well-foughten field
We kept together in our chivalry!'
Upon these words I came and cheered him up:
He smiled me in the face, raught me his hand,
And, with a feeble gripe, says, 'Dear my Lord,
Commend my service to my sovereign.'
So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck
He threw his wounded arm, and kissed his lips;
And so, espoused to death, with blood he seal'd
A testament of noble-ending love."BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER
SWEET FLETCHER'S BRAIN
AN EPITAPH
All thy laments, and all thy weeping eyes!
Burn out, you living monuments of woe!
Sad, sullen griefs, now rise and overflow!
Virtue is dead;
Oh! cruel fate!
All youth is fled;
All our laments too late.
Oh, noble youth, to thy ne'er dying name,
Oh, happy youth, to thy still growing fame,
To thy long peace in earth, this sacred knell
Our last loves ring--farewell, farewell, farewell!
Go, happy soul, to thy eternal birth!
And press his body lightly, gentle Earth."
His worth is great; radiant he is, and temperate;
And one that never thinks his life his own,
If his friend need it."VAUVENARGUES ON DE SEYTRES
PRINCE WILLIAM AND BENTINCK
PRINCESS ANNE AND LADY CHURCHILL
ARCHBISHOP POTTER
WINCKELMANN'S LETTERS
None thy Poet-fame dispute;
I too gladly hear thy singing,
I too hearken when thou'rt mute.
Kisses not to be forgot,
Best of all, for words may perish,
But a kiss lives on in thought.
Thoughts to think bring deeper joy;
Sing to other folk, but tarry
Silent with thy serving-boy."HERDER ON GREEK FRIENDSHIP
FROM SCHILLER'S DON KARLOS
What my heart says--that out of millions, thou
Hast been decreed at last to understand me;
If it be true that Nature all-creative
In moulding Karlos copied Roderick,
And strung the tender chords of our two souls
Harmonious in the morning of our lives;
If even a tear that eases thus my sorrow
Is dearer to thee than my father's favor--
But thou--
Thy make my cheeks red even now with shame!
Contemn thou could'st, and even rend my heart,
But ne'er estrange. Three times thou did'st repulse
The young Prince from thee; thrice again he came
As suppliant to thee--to entreat thy love,
And urgently to press his love upon thee.
But that which Karlos could not, chance effected.
I looked on thee and wept not. But the King
Was angered by my boyish heroism,
And for twelve terrible hours emprisoned me
I will so, Karl. My boyish affidavit
As man I now renew; I will repay;
My hour will also strike, perchance.
The dead man was my friend. And would you know
Wherefore he died? He perished for my sake.
Yes, Sire, for we were brothers I brothers by
which the following are a few lines:--
Cesarion dead! His happy days
Death to the grave has consecrate.
His charm I mourn and gentle grace.
He's dead--my tender, faithful mate!
A thousand daggers pierce my heart; VON KUPFFER ON ETHICS AND POLITICS
FRIEDRICH RUCKERT TO HIS FRIEND
Who knew myself as part of thee?
I only know one half is vanished,
And half alone is left, of me.
Never again my proper mind
I'll know; for thee I'll never find.
I'll find thee; but here, deep within.
I see, tho' not in dreams, thy face;
My waking eyes thy presence win,
And all my thought and poesy
Are but my offering to thee.
"My Jonathan, now hast thou fled,
And I to weep thy loss remain;
If David's harp might grace my hands
O might it help to ease my pain!
My friend, my Joseph, true of faith,
In life so loved--so loved in death."ROUGH WEATHER FRIENDS
By the spring wind gently swayed
Formed for us a bower of bliss;
No, stormbound, but love-intent,
There against the damp wall bent
We two bartered kiss for kiss.
(Child of storms and wintry air),
Not like Spring's sweet fragrance fade.
Even in sorrow thou shalt flourish,
Frost shall not make thee afraid,
And in storms thou shalt not perish."AUGUST VON PLATEN
Why he can feel what I have felt before,
Who seeing joy sees it again no more
The instant he attempts his joy to gain;
Who, caught as in a labyrinth unaware,
The outlet from it never more can find;
Whom love seems only for this end to bind--
In order to hand over to Despair;
Each star to reel his thread of life away ON THE DEATH OF PINDAR
Like the pale stars, swiftly and silently,
Would that death's messenger might come to me,
As once it came to Pindar--so they say.
Not that I would in Life, or in my Verse,
With him, the great Incomparable, compare;
Only his Death, my friend, I ask to share:
But let me now the gracious tale rehearse.
He sat; and wearied out at last, had lain
His cheek upon his dear one's comely knee;
Then when it died away--the choral strain--
He who thus cushioned him said: Wake and come!
But to the Gods above he had gone home."WAGNER AND LUDWIG II
LUDWIG II TO RICHARD WAGNER
LUDWIG."
"LUDWIG."
"LUDWIG."WAGNER ON GREEK COMRADESHIP
HÆCKEL'S VISIT TO CEYLON
K. H. ULRICHS
God's finger--as 'twixt thee and me--
That happy day, in Davern's grove--
I felt the Spring wind's tender greeting,
And April touched my heart to love.
Thy hand in mine lay kindly mated;
Thy gaze held mine quite fascinated--
So gracious wast, and fair!
Thy glance my life-thread almost severed;
My heart for joy and gladness quivered,
Nigh more than it could bear.
The breeze thro' budding twigs hath ranged,
And lips have learned to meet each other,
And kisses mute exchanged."
Memnon, p. 23.BYRON'S LETTERS
Yet thrills my bosom's chords,
How much thy friendship was above
Description's power of words!
Still near my breast thy gift I wear
Which sparkled once with Feeling's tear,
Of Love, the pure, the sacred gem;
Our souls were equal, and our lot
In that dear moment quite forgot;
Let pride alone condemn."THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN
BYRON'S NISUS AND EURYALUS
Eager to gild his arms with hostile blood;
Well-skilled in fight the quivering lance to wield,
Or pour his arrows thro' the embattled field:
From Ida torn, he left his Sylvan cave,
And sought a foreign home, a distant grave.
To watch the movements of the Daunian host,
With him Euryalus sustains the post;
No lovelier mien adorn'd the ranks of Troy,
And beardless bloom yet graced the gallant boy;
Tho' few the seasons of his youthful life,
A yet a novice in the martial strife,
’Twas his, with beauty, valor's gifts to share--
A soul heroic, as his form was fair.
These burn with one pure flame of generous love;
Dying, revenged the fate of him he loved;
Then on his bosom sought his wonted place,
And death was heavenly in his friend's embrace!
Celestial pair! if aught my verse can claim,
Wafted on Time's broad pinion, yours is fame!
Ages on ages shall your fate admire,
No future day shall see your names expire,
While stands the Capitol, immortal dome!
And vanquished millions hail their empress, Rome!"BYRON'S CALMAR AND ORLA
MOORE ON BYRON
SHELLEY ON FRIENDSHIP
LORD BEACONSFIELD'S "CONINGSBY"
FITZGERALD AND POSH
ALFRED TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM"
A late-lost form that sleep reveals,
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels
Her place is empty, fall like these;
A void where heart on heart reposed;
And, where warm hands have prest and closed,
Silence, till I be silent too.
An awful thought, a life removed,
The human-hearted man I loved,
A spirit, not a breathing voice.
I do not suffer in a dream;
For now so strange do these things seem,
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears;
And glance about the approaching sails,
As tho' they brought but merchant's bales,
And not the burden that they bring."
Where he in English earth is laid,
And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
As if the quiet bones were blest
Among familiar names to rest
And in the places of his youth.
That sleeps, or wears the mask of sleep,
And come, whatever loves to weep,
And hear the ritual of the dead.
I, falling on his faithful heart,
Would breathing thro' his lips impart
The life that almost dies in me:
And slowly forms the firmer mind,
Treasuring the look it cannot find,
The words that are not heard again."
Thy ransom'd reason change replies
With all the circle of the wise,
The perfect flower of human time;
So far, so near, in woe or weal;
O loved the most when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;
Sweet human hand and lips and eye,
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, for ever, ever, mine!
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold I dream a dream of good
And mingle all the world with thee."
I hear thee where the waters run;
Thou standest in the rising sun,
And in the setting thou art fair. BROWNING'S "MAY AND DEATH"
Charles, there had died along with you
Three parts of Spring's delightful things;
Ay, and for me the fourth part too.
There must be many a pair of friends
Who arm-in-arm deserve the warm
Moon-births and the long evening-ends. RALPH WALDO EMERSON
HENRY D. THOREAU
WALT WHITMAN
"LEAVES OF GRASS"
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior, I will tell you what to say of me,
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest,
Who was not proud of his Songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him, and freely pour'd it forth,
Who often walk'd lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive away from one he lov'd often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov'd might secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men,
Who oft as he saunterd the streets curv'd with his
And else when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal and with the joy, next at evening came my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continuously up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me,
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these States inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water,
Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades."
Ibid, p. 107.
Footnotes