I like to think this friendship that we hold
As youth's high gift in our two hands today
Still shall we find as bright, untarnished gold
...
Sometimes, slow moving through unlovely days,
The need to look on beauty falls on me
As on the blind the anguished wish to see,
...
'Black Sheep, Black Sheep,
Have you any wool?'
'That I have, my Master,
Three bags full.'
...
A hundred miles between us
Could never part us more
Than that one step you took from me
What time my need was sore.
...
I
They whisper at my very gate,
These clacking gossips every one,
'We saw them in the wood of late,
...
To you he gave his laughter and his jest,
His words that of all words were merriest,
His glad, mad moments when the lights flared high
And his wild song outshrilled the plaudits' din.
...
When the white dawn comes
I shall kneel to welcome it;
The dread that darkened on my eyes
Shall vanish and be gone.
...
I
Though other eyes were turned to him,
He turned to look in mine;
...
Good-bye, my song — I, who found words for sorrow,
Offer my joy today a useless lute.
In the deep night I sang me of the morrow;
...
The burden that I bear would be no less
Should I cry out against it; though I fill
The weary day with sound of my distress,
...