Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MY OLD FRIEND, by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO MY OLD FRIEND, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You, who through every change remain
Last Line: The days of eighteen-ninety-five!
Subject(s): Change; Competition; Nostalgia; Poetry & Poets; Time; Writing & Writers


You, who through every change remain
Lucid, an analyst, and sane,
Accept my thanks for this short pause
Among the wrecks of schools and laws,—
This pause of honest talk, that brings
Memories back of many things,
When Lionel—he was not married—
Home in his coat tail whiskey carried,
And Ernest Dowson made a sonnet
To a preposterous Polish bonnet,
And Arthur Symons penned great folly
Before he fell on melancholy,
And all of us had seen Rossetti
Still looming upon Charon's jetty,
And everyone was still possessed
By dreams of writing better than the rest!

Wilde we knew well. We Beardsley saw,
And duly damned the early Shaw.
But now as wraiths and conquered souls
These vanish. Their forgotten roles
Are grown pathetic. We survive
As fathers, very much alive,
But oft inclined to drop a tear
On Fancy's old romantic bier.
You, friend, are much in love, I know,
With what the Present Time can show,
And, I, too old-world, can't agree
With Change—but unto you and me,
At meetings such as this, must still
Come gleams from old Olympus' hill.
Both you and I—tho' you're so new—
Regret that Past, now out of view,
And sometimes wish we could revive
The days of Eighteen-Ninety-Five!





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