Explore "Friendship" by Ralph Waldo Emerson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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 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 has taught / To master my despair; / The fountains of my hidden life / Are through thy friendship fair.
We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth.