C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Unknown Friends

Translation of E. and R. E. Prothero

ONE line may, like a friend who knows us well,

Re-ope the wound whose smart is not forgot;

The word that doth another’s sufferings tell

May drop like tears on our own anguished spot,

Where heart misjudged awaits its soothing spell.

My verse, perchance, may reach you and restore,

With lightning flash, the sleeping grief of old;

Or by that one true word—long waited for—

The sudden name of all you feel unfold,

Nor tell the eyes from whom I learnt my lore.