"From Friend to Friend"
Title
"From Friend to Friend"
Creator
John Addington Symonds
Source
New And Old: A Volume of Verse
Publisher
James R. Osgood and Company
Date
1880
Text
Dear friend, I know not if such days and nights
Of fervent comradeship as we have spent,
Or if twin minds with equal ardour bent
To search the world's unspeakable delights,
Or if long hours passed on Parnassian heights
Together in rapt interminglement
Of heart with heart on thought sublime intent,
Or if the spark of heaven-born fire that lights
Love in both breasts from boyhood, thus have wrought
Our spirits to communion; but I swear
That neither chance nor change nor time nor aught
That makes the future of our lives less fair,
Shall sunder us who once have breathed this air
Of soul-commingling friendship passion-fraught.
Of fervent comradeship as we have spent,
Or if twin minds with equal ardour bent
To search the world's unspeakable delights,
Or if long hours passed on Parnassian heights
Together in rapt interminglement
Of heart with heart on thought sublime intent,
Or if the spark of heaven-born fire that lights
Love in both breasts from boyhood, thus have wrought
Our spirits to communion; but I swear
That neither chance nor change nor time nor aught
That makes the future of our lives less fair,
Shall sunder us who once have breathed this air
Of soul-commingling friendship passion-fraught.
Files
Citation
John Addington Symonds, “"From Friend to Friend",” Victorian Queer Archive, accessed April 28, 2024, https://victorianqueerarchive.omeka.net/items/show/75.