So sweet its songs are sung.
And Friendship's but broad, common day,
With light enough to show
Where fruit with brambles grow;
With warmth enough to feed
The grain of daily need.

--_Unknown_.

* * * * *

Only--but this is rare--
When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafened ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed--
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost impulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

--_Arnold_.

* * * * *

Yes, we must ever be friends; and of all who offer you friendship,
Let me be the first, the truest, the nearest, the dearest.