Classic Poem

A MISTY memory — faint, far away
And vague and dim as childhood's long lost day —
Forever haunts and holds me with a spell
Of awe and wonder indefinable: —
A grimy old engraving tacked upon
A shoe-shop wall. — An ancient temple, drawn
Of crumbling granite, sagging portico,
And gray, forbidding gateway, grim as woe;
And o'er the portal, cut in antique line,
The words — cut likewise in this brain of mine —
" Wouldst have a friend? — Wouldst know what friend is best?
Have GOD thy friend: He passeth all the rest. "

Again the old shoemaker pounds and pounds
Resentfully, as the loud laugh resounds
And the coarse jest is bandied round the throng
That smokes about the smoldering stove; and long,
Tempestuous disputes arise, and then —
Even as all like discords — die again;
The while a barefoot boy more gravely heeds
The quaint old picture, and tiptoeing reads
There in the rainy gloom the legend o'er
The lowering portal of the old church door —
" Wouldst have a friend? — Wouldst know what friend is best?
Have GOD thy friend: He passeth all the rest. "

So older — older — older, year by year,
The boy has grown, that now, an old man here,
He seems a part of Allegory, where
He stands before Life as the old print there —
Still awed, and marveling what light must be
Hid by the door that bars Futurity: —
Though, ever clearer than with eyes of youth,
He reads with his old eyes — and tears forsooth —
" Wouldst have a friend? — Wouldst know what friend is best?
Have GOD thy friend: He passeth all the rest. "