A Friendship

Small fellowship of daily commonplace
   We hold together, dear, constrained to go
   Diverging ways. Yet day by day I know
My life is sweeter for thy life’s sweet grace;
And if we meet but for a moment’s space,
   Thy touch, thy word, sets all the world aglow.
   Faith soars serener, haunting doubts shrink low,
   Abashed before the sunshine of thy face.
Nor press of crowd, nor waste of distance serves
   To part us. Every hush of evening brings
   Some hint of thee, true-hearted friend of mine;
And as the father planet thrills and swerves
   When towards it through the darkness Saturn swings,
   Even so my spirit feels the spell of thine.

¹⁸⁸⁸

Credit

Author

Sophie Jewett

Sophie Jewett, a poet, translator, and professor, was born on June 3, 1861, in Moravia, New York, to Dr. Charles Carroll Jewett, a country physician, and Ellen Ransom Burroughs. Jewett’s father died during her childhood, prompting the family, including her two sisters and brother, to move to Buffalo, New York. Around age twenty, she traveled to England and Italy, usually in the company of one of her sisters, who was an artist. Her sojourns in the latter country inspired what became Italian Sketches (Suburban Press, 1917).

Date Published

01/01/1910