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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


MR. W. H. TO THE POET by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY

First Line: MY THANKS, DEAR FRIEND, AS ALWAYS! BUT, I FEAR
Last Line: AND FRIENDSHIP IS LOVE'S CANONIZED NAME.
Subject(s): ART & ARTISTS; FRIENDSHIP; GRATITUDE; LOVE;

My thanks, dear friend, as always! But, I fear
No art -- not Prospero's -- can speak to me
As those swift words you breathed first in my ear.
They were your heart; this but your wizardry.
We have lived much, won much, and now are old.
Strange, is it not, when I call in review
My life's achievements, dross and drab and gold,
There's nothing shines but took its light from you?
And yet, as I reread our book to-night,
And trembled almost at some old-loved line,
I wondered if the world, so prone to slight,
Would some day slur your stainless name with mine,
Not knowing there is ice in heavenly flame,
And Friendship is Love's canonized name.



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