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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  “We have been friends together”

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Friendship

“We have been friends together”

Caroline Elizabeth Sarah (Sheridan) Norton (1808–1877)

WE have been friends together

In sunshine and in shade,

Since first beneath the chestnut-tree

In infancy we played.

But coldness dwells within thy heart,

A cloud is on thy brow;

We have been friends together,

Shall a light word part us now?

We have been gay together;

We have laughed at little jests;

For the fount of hope was gushing

Warm and joyous in our breasts,

But laughter now hath fled thy lip,

And sullen glooms thy brow;

We have been gay together,

Shall a light word part us now?

We have been sad together;

We have wept with bitter tears

O’er the grass-grown graves where slumbered

The hopes of early years.

The voices which were silent then

Would bid thee cheer thy brow;

We have been sad together,

Shall a light word part us now?