Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO A FRIEND, by JOHN CHALK CLARIS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO A FRIEND, by                    
First Line: Look up, look up, that heavy blow
Last Line: Shall lighten our declining years!
Alternate Author Name(s): Brooke, Arthur
Subject(s): Friendship


1.

LOOK up, look up, that heavy brow
Is clouded by no common grief,
I've marked it lowering long, but now,
Ere the heart's madness mock relief,
Oh let thy sorrows take from me
Such comfort as I took from thee
Once in fate's worst extremity.

2.

How can I bear to see that eye,
Which shone to me a star of gladness
Through the dim night of misery,
Thus sunk, thus shrouded in its sadness!
Look up to mine—too rarely bright
With joy indeed—but if one light
Of peace be there, 'tis thine by right.

3.

And then thy heart—not long ago
A fount of fresh and happiest thought,
From which my own, however slow
To pleasure, its sole pleasure caught,—
Seems now a lost and mournful thing,
Cold, desolate, and withering,
Like Winter without hope of Spring.

4.

Oft has thy buoyant spirit lifted
Mine o'er the perilous waves of pain,
Which else a hopeless wreck had drifted;—
Should it not pay that debt again?
Lean then on mine—though weak it be,
Great is the might of sympathy—
It will not sink in succouring thee.

5.

Thou hast sought other ties, and found
Some tenderer friendships, not more true;
And didst not deem perhaps, while round
Thy giddy sense young Passion threw
The mists of its entrancing power,
That there might come a chillier hour,
—And Love is still a summer flower!

6.

Friendship and Love! both things divine;—
Love with the winged lightning's force
Flashes and fades; through storm and shine
Friendship its equable calm course
Keeps like the sun;—with fickle flame
I have loved many—but there came
A change in them—thou wert the same.

7.

Then let Love fail, or Fortune frown,
Let the cold world despise or hate,
Friend, we will go together down
The deepening vale of life; one fate,
Gloomy or bright, through hopes or fears,
Blending alike our smiles and tears,
Shall lighten our declining years!





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