May Our Friendship Last Forever

by Nicholas Gordon

May our friendship last forever,

may I sail upon your sea.
May we go through life together,
may there always be a “we”.
May I be your endless sky,
may you breathe my gentle air.
May you never wonder why
each time you look for me, I’m there.

May we be for each a smile

like the warm, life-giving sun.
Yet when we’re in pain awhile,
may our suffering be one.

May we share our special days,

the happiness of one for two.
And if we must go separate ways,
let my love remain with you.

Love and Friendship

by Emily Bronte
 Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree—
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild rose-briar is sweet in the spring,

Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now

And deck thee with the holly’s sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green.

No Time Like the Old Time

by Oliver Wendell Homes

There is no time like the old time,

 when you and I were young,
When the buds of April blossomed,
and the birds of spring-time sung!
The gardens brightest glories
by summer suns are nursed,
But oh, the sweet, sweet violets,
the flowers that opened first!

There is no friend like the old friend,

who has shared our morning days,
No greeting like his welcome,
no homage like his praise:
Fame is the scentless sunflower,
with gaudy crown of gold;
But friendship is the breathing rose,
with sweets in every fold.

Friendship
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

A ruddy drop of manly blood

The surging sea outweighs,
The world uncertain comes and goes;
 The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,—
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness,
Like the daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again,
O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red;
All things through thee take nobler form,
And look beyond the earth,
The mill-round of our fate appears,
A sun-path in thy worth.
Me too thy nobleness had taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.
 Friends
by William Butler Yeats

Now must I these three praise

Three women that have wrought
What joy is in my days:
One because no thought,
Nor those unpassing cares,
No, not in these fifteen
Many-times-troubled years,
Could ever come between
Mind and delighted mind;
And one because her hand
Had strength that could unbind
What none can understand,
What none can have and thrive,
Youth's dreamy load, till she
So changed me that I live
Labouring in ecstasy.
And what of her that took
All till my youth was gone
With scarce a pitying look?
How could I praise that one?
When day begins to break
I count my good and bad,
Being wakeful for her sake,
Remembering what she had,
What eagle look still shows,
While up from my heart's root
So great a sweetness flows
I shake from head to foot.

Friendship Sonnet (Sonnet 30)

by William Shakespeare
 When to the session of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in deaths dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.