Alone

"Where art thou, friend ? — Day after day,

Youth like a river flows away;

And forth we fare to meet decay: —

                                          Where are thou ?

Where art thou, friend ? — Beneath the sun

Man hath one life, but only done;

And Life to Death doth hourly run: —

                                          Where are thou ?

Where art thou, friend ? — Must our own will

Combine with chance and change to chill

The hearts that once were won't to thrill? —

                                          Where are thou ?

Where art thou, friend ? — Stretch forth thine hand

Across the waste to where I stand;

Let love not fade like fires unfanned: —

                                          Where are thou ?

Where art thou, friend ? — Can love secure

In gloom and solitude endure ?

Oblivion's wound what skill can cure ? —

                                          Where are thou ?

Where art thou, friend ? — In vain I wail.

Let me not spread my spirit's sail

Alone, to drift before the gale! 

                                          Where are thou ?"

John Addington Symonds (1840-1893)

Lad's Love

An Anthology of Uranian Poetry and Prose

Edited with an introduction by Michael Matthew Kaylor

Kansas City, Valancourt Books, 2010, vol. 2, p. 365.