Friendship

By Hartley Coleridge

1796-1849


WHEN we were idlers with the loitering rills,
The need of human love we little noted:
         Our love was nature; and the peace that floated
On the white mist, and dwelt upon the hills,
To sweet accord subdued our wayward wills:
         One soul was ours, one mind, one heart devoted,
         That, wisely doting, ask'd not why it doted,
And ours the unknown joy, which knowing kills.
But now I find how dear thou wert to me;
         That man is more than half of nature's treasure,
Of that fair beauty which no eye can see,
         Of that sweet music which no ear can measure;
         And now the streams may sing for others' pleasure,
The hills sleep on in their eternity.

DayPoems Poem No. 598
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/598.html">Friendship by Hartley Coleridge</a>

The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor

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