FRIEND of the dead, and friend of all my days <br />Even since they cast off boyhood, I salute <br />The song saluting friends whose songs are mute <br />With full burnt-offerings of clear-spirited praise. <br />That since our old young years our several ways <br />Have led through fields diverse of flower and fruit <br />Yet no cross wind has once relaxed the root <br />We set long since beneath the sundawn’s rays, <br />The root of trust whence towered the trusty tree, <br />Friendship this only and duly might impel <br />My song to salutation of your own; <br />More even than praise of one unseen of me <br />And loved the starry spirit of Dobell, <br />To mine by light and music only known. <br /> <br />II. <br /> <br />But more than this what moves me most of all <br />To leave not all unworded and unsped <br />The whole heart’s greeting of my thanks unsaid <br />Scarce needs this sign, that from my tongue should fall <br />His name whom sorrow and reverent love recall, <br />The sign to friends on earth of that dear head <br />Alive, which now long since untimely dead <br />The wan grey waters covered for a pall. <br />Their trustless reaches dense with tangling stems <br />Took never life more taintless of rebuke, <br />More pure and perfect, more serene and kind, <br />Than when those clear eyes closed beneath the Thames, <br />And made the now more hallowed name of Luke <br />Memorial to us of morning left behind.<br /><br />Algernon Charles Swinburne<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-john-nichol-sonnets/
