Muse and Mint

Chapter 53: FRIENDSHIP

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About This Book

A varied collection of short lyrical poems that observes nature and rural life, using seasonal imagery—sap, snow, rivers, cherries—and simple domestic scenes to reflect on change, beauty, and small joys. Sections shift between fireside recollections, sentimental and philosophical meditations, homiletic and religious pieces, and light humor, blending devotional songlike verses with moral aphorisms and affectionate memory. The voice moves between wistful and buoyant moods, finding consolation and ethical insight in commonplace experiences, while concise stanzas and vivid images emphasize mood and moral reflection rather than a continuous narrative.

FRIENDSHIP

O Friendship! On life’s crown the pearl

Amidst its jewels rare,

A star for peasant or for earl

The other gems whate’er—

Be diamond on the kingly brow

Or garnet dull on toil,

The hearted radiance art thou,

Of noblest might or moil.

But ah, to only value thee

As treasure of desire

For peerlessness of purity

We gain to but admire;

And not to feel thy inner worth

As stuff of primal deeps,

Some miracle of troubled birth

Where lowly nature creeps!

Is this, O Friendship, worthy of

The praises of the Muse,

Of life so lightly prone to love

But fire to refuse?

If only in our hand we hold

Another’s sacrifice

And give it back no gift of gold,

’Tis not the Pearl of Price.