A DEAD FRIENDSHIP
There is no more to say;
Some bitterness of thought is left unsaid
And broods within the heart and will not go,
But leave it thus untold to fade away,
And give no life to what is better dead:
Each knows the other knows it; leave it so.
Henceforward we may meet
With knowledge of each other, but not love;
Here for the last time we shake hands and part;
Our love has waned, our faith grown incomplete;
Which is at fault we may not hope to prove,
For each acquits himself to his own heart.
Ah! friendship has its spring
Like all things else, its growth and its decay:
It may not last, its summer is not long;
When it is dead and ended, shall we bring
But bitter words unto its grave, and say:
Thus did thou wrong me! Thus thou did’st me wrong!
Nay, hush! let us forget.
What profit is it to remember all?
Let us remember only what was best.
Things that are bitter, things that pain and fret,
Ill-thoughts we may regret but not recall,
Let them be all forgotten unexpressed.
And I will think that you
Died with your hand in mine, one summer when
No shadow of this sadder time to be
Clouded those sunny days our friendship knew,
That thus, ere life grew sad, and even then,
You died.—I ask you to think thus of me.
So each, perhaps, may keep
Remembrance as of one he used to know,
A dear, dead friend he ne’er again shall meet,
And ne’er forget; forgetfulness shall heap
Its dust on all but that, and we may grow
To find in such remembrance something sweet.