The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 11. ...the fountains of my hidden life...

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Friendship

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,

And is the mill-round of our fate

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.’

—Ralph Waldo Emerson,[i]

1841