FRIENDS IN HIGH SCHOOL

Friends in high school are forever young.
Unchanged, they're where you always will belong.
The crowd is never gone, the pleasure stays,
The music of the moment always plays,
The time remains a field of wistful grace
To which you may return from anyplace.
Of course, you may still know them later on
When you are someone else and years have run;
And you may love them dearly, and they you,
But time must make their friendship something new.
Meanwhile, flourishing within your heart
There is a whole, of which you were a part:
A group of friends, one in love and pain,
In whom your longing comes alive again.

FIRST LOVE IS LIKE PLAYING WITH FIRE

The fire in your body,
The glory of your touch:
Ah! my dear first love,
Never, never leave my heart!

Although the fire is distant,
The pain is always near.
My dear first love, please listen:
I hold you in my heart.

From a Secret Admirer

I know that you must think it queer
For me to love and not come near
But linger by some frozen lake
This most romantic time of year.

I sometimes give my head a shake
And ask if there is some mistake.
It's lonely out here 'mid the sweep
Of bitter wind and icy flake.

My love for you is dark and deep,
But it's a promise I will keep
As from afar I watch and weep,
As from afar I watch and weep

Happiness Is Not a Tended Rose

Happiness is not a tended rose
Amid the prescient beauty of a garden:
Perhaps one senses soon some gate may close;
Perhaps one senses soon the earth will harden.
Years come and go like waves upon a shore,
Violent or peaceful with the wind.
After one has given up on more,
Love waits within the heart, its passion thinned.
Even in a passage void of light,
Nether windings black with rage and grief,
There are waters sweet with lost delight
In which one finds a strong, serene belief.
No happiness can overcome life's pain
Except one love, and love give life again.