I’ve always loved the work of Kahlil Gibran. This beautiful prose poem about friendship is one of my favourites:
And the youth said, Speak to us of Friendship.
And he answered, saying:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field that you sow with love and
reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and
you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not
the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you with-
hold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to
listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all
desires, all expectations are born and shared, with
joy that in unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve
not;
For that which you love most in him may be
clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber
is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save
the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of
its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth:
and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him
know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him
with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your
emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be
laughter, and sharing and pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds
its morning and is refreshed.