THE TWO FRIENDS
by: Charles Godfrey Leland
(1824-1903)
- HAVE two
friends -- two glorious friends -- two better could not be,
- And every night when midnight tolls they meet to laugh with
me.
-
- The first was shot by Carlist thieves -- ten years ago in
Spain.
- The second drowned near Alicante -- while I alive remain.
-
- I love to see their dim white forms come floating through
the night,
- And grieve to see them fade away in early morning light.
-
- The first with gnomes in the Under Land is leading a lordly
life,
- The second has married a mermaiden, a beautiful water-wife.
-
- And since I have friends in the Earth and Sea -- with a few,
I trust, on high,
- 'T is a matter of small account to me -- the way that I may
die.
-
- For whether I sink in the foaming flood, or swing on the
triple tree,
- Or die in my bed, as a Christian should, is all the same
to me.
"The Two Friends" is reprinted
from The Little Book of American Poets: 1787-1900. Ed.
Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1915. |
MORE POEMS BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND |
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