Poems (Greenwell)/To a Friend

For works with similar titles, see To a Friend.
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TO A FRIEND. 
 Oh, call me but thy Friend! Seek thou no other word when thou wouldst pour Thy soul in mine; for this unto the core  Of Love doth pierce, and in it comprehend All secrets of its lore!
 Yet thou dost move within A Tropic sphere of soul, and all too weak  For thy full-hearted utterance; worn too thin By daily usage seem the words we speak.  Too oft misprizing them; so thou dost hold This current coin of ours for base, and choose From thine own wealth new moulds, wherein to fuse  Thy virgin, unsunned gold!
 So let thy choice be free! Our spirits thus by divers laws are bound:  One may not judge the other, but from me Seek thou no other token! for its sound ​ Hath been to me for music; bringing round  Kind eyes that looked on me, kind hands I found Outstretched to help me over pathways drear; And some of these are far, and some are near, And some are in the Heavens, but all are dear  In God, who gave them to me; so this "Friend" Is like a full-stringed chord, that still doth seem  Within its sound to gather up and blend All, all that life in other lives that takes Away Life's curse of barrenness, and makes Our Being's sweet and often-troubled dream!
 I never used it lightly; unto me A sacredness hung round it; for a Sign  I held it of our common words that be Initial letters of a speech divine:  Oh, take this coin, too oft to worthless ends Profaned, and see upon its circlet shine One Image fair—one Legend never dim; And Whose but Caesar's? for this word by Him  Was used at parting, "I have called you Friends."
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