<h2><SPAN name="To_an_old_Friend" id="To_an_old_Friend"></SPAN>To an old Friend</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A tongue of lambent living flame<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Stirs lightly when I hear your name,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Your features delicate and rare,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Quiver with every thought you bear;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">It ever was a strange delight<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To see your charming face alight,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To sit with you awhile apart<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And hear the beating of your heart,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or watch the message from your brain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Into your eyes then back again.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And still it is my fairest dream—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That delicate ethereal gleam,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The fire that played behind your face,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lighting it with such fairy grace;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Such intuition sweet and wild;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Why should you always be a child?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">You cannot ever hope to grow<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Into a woman; oh dear no!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The fairies never would allow<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Such desecration; so that, now,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You must be reconciled to stay<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For ever as you are to-day.<br/></span>
<span class="pagenum">[58]</span><span class="i0">What an enchanting fate is this!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Eternally a child to be,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Laughing with that untroubled bliss<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That only haunts the fancy free:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Yes, yours is happiness indeed;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Barefoot to roam the woodland vale,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All careless, though your feet should bleed<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Because you hear the nightingale;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All heedless, though the thorns should tear,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And though the pain be fierce and wild,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For Nature gives to you her kiss;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And you will always be her child.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum">[59]</span></p>
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