IT'S hard to know who are your friends, so many men have selfish ends. I take a comrade to my heart, and feed him pie and damson tart, and give him love that's pure and deep, and let him in my woodshed sleep. Then he requests, in dulcet tones, that I shall lend him twenty bones. "I'd gladly lend you all you need," I say in answer, "but indeed, H. C. of L. has stripped me bare—I haven't twenty bucks to spare. If fifty cents will help you out, you're welcome to that much, old scout; but I've a wife and nineteen kids, who all are needing shoes and lids, and it's as much as I can do to dig up for that loving crew." And then my friend comes round no more, to hang his bonnet on the floor, and talk with me of vital things, of sealing wax and cats and kings. Instead, he roasts me through the town, and tries to give me punk renown, as being one who is too tight to help a comrade in a plight. This sort of thing one gets from friends, as through this woozy world he wends. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DRIFTERS: BELLA COOLA TO WILLIAMS LAKE by KAREN SWENSON IN HOSPITAL: 23. MUSIC by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY CONSIDER by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI SONNET: 66 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 47 by ALFRED TENNYSON |