The Friend by Walt Whitman — Read

Recorders ages hence! / Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior -- I will tell / you what to say of me; / Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, / The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest, / Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within / him -- and freely poured it forth, / Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers, / Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied / at night, / Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly / be indifferent to him, / Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he / and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men, / Who oft, as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of / his friend -- while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.