TO AN OLD FRIEND

I like to dream of some established spot

Where you and I, old friend, an evening through

Under tobacco's fog, streaked gray and blue,

Might reconsider laughters unforgot.

Beside a hearth-glow, golden-clear and hot,

I'd hear you tell the oddities men do.

The clock would tick, and we would sit, we two —

Life holds such meetings for us, does it not?

Happy are men when they have learned to prize

The sure unvarnished virtue of their friends,

The unchanged kindness of a well-known face:

On old fidelities our world depends,

And runs a simple course in honest wise,

Not a mere taxicab shot wild through space!