Read "A Fragment" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Your words came just when needed. Like a breeze, / Blowing and bringing from the wide salt sea / Some cooling spray, to meadow scorched with heat / And choked with dust and clouds of sifted sand, / That hateful whirlwinds, envious of its bloom, / Had tossed upon it. But the cool sea breeze / Came laden with the odors of the sea / And damp with spray, that laid the dust and sand / And brought new life and strength to blade and bloom, / So words of thine came over miles to me, / Fresh from the mighty sea, a true friend's heart, / And brought me hope, and strength, and swept away / The dusty webs that human spiders spun / Across my path. Friend -- and the word means much -- / So few there are who reach like thee, a hand / Up over all the barking curs of spite / And give the clasp, when most its need is felt; / Friend, newly found, accept my full heart's thanks.