Classic Poem

1

Love, nature's plot, this great Creation's soule,
The being and the Harmony of things,
Doth still preserve and propagate the whole,
From whence man's happiness and safety springs:
The early'st, whitest, blessed'st times did draw
From her alone their Universall Law.

2

Friendship is abstract of this noble flame,
'Tis love refin'd and purg'd from all its drosse,
The next to Angells Love, if nor the same,
Stronger then passion is, though not so grosse:
It antedates a glad Eternity,
And is a heaven in Epitomy.

3

Nobler then kindred or then mariage band,
Because more free; wedlock felicity
It self doth only by this Union stand,
And turns to friendship or to misery
Force or design matches to passe may bring,
But Friendship doth from love and honour spring.

4

If no soules no sexes have, for men t'exlude
Women from friendship's vast capacity,
Is a design injurious and rude,
Onely maintain'd by partiall tyranny
Love is allow'd to us, and Innocence,
And noblest friendships doe proceed from thence.

5

The chiefest thing in Friends is Sympathy:
There is a secret fate do's friendship guide,
Which made two souls before they know agree,
Who by a thousand mixtures are ally'd,
And chang'd and lost, so that it is not known
Within which Brest doth now reside their own.

6

Essentiall honour must be in a Friend,
Not such as every breath fanns to and fro;
But born Within, is its own Judge and end,
And dares not sin though sure that none should know
Where Friendship's spake, honesty's understood;
For none can be a friend that is not good.

7

Friendship doth carry more then common trust
And treachery is here the greatest Sin:
Secrets deposed then none ever must
Presume to open, but who put them in.
They that in one Chest lay up all their stock,
Had need be sure that none can pick the lock.

8

A Brest too open a friendship does not love,
For that the other's trust will not conceale;
Nor one too much reserv'd can it approve,
Its own condition this will not reveale
We empty passions for a double end,
To be refresh'd and Guarded by a friend.

9

Wisedome and knowledge friendship do's require,
The first for counsell, this for Company;
And though not mainely, yet we may desire
Both Complaisance and ingenuity.
Though every thing may love, yet 'tis a rule,
He cannot be a friend that is a foole.

10

Discretion uses parts, and best knows how;
And patience will all qualitys commend:
That serves a need best, but this will allow
The weaknesses and passions of a Friend
We are not yet come to the Quire above:
Who cannot pardon here, can never love.

11

Thick waters shew no images of things;
Friends are each other's Mirrours, and should be
Clearer than Crystall or the Mountaine-springs,
And free from clouds, design or flattery
For vulgar soules no part of friendship share:
Poets and friends are born to what they are.

12

Friends should observe and chide each other's fault,
To be severe then is most Just and kind;
Nothing can 'scape their search who know the thought:
This they should give and take with equall mind
For friendship, when this freedom is deny'd,
Is like a Painter when his hands are ty'd.

13

A friend should find out each necessity,
And then unask'd relieve't at any rate:
It is not friendship, but formallity,
To be desir'd; for kindness keeps no state
Of friends he doth the benefactour prove,
That gives his friend a meanes t'express his Love.

14

Absence doth not from Friendship's rites excuse:
They who preserve each other's heart and fame,
Parting can ne're divide; it may diffuse,
(As liquors, which asunder are the same)
Though presence help'd them at the first to greet,
Their soules know now without those aids to meet.

15

Constant and solid, whom no storms can shake,
Nor death unfix, a right friend ought to be;
And if condemned to survive, doth make
No second choice, but Grief and memory.
But friendship's best fate is, when it can spend
A life, A fortune, all to Serve a Friend