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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


ON MY FRIENDS COMING TO HEAR ME LECTURE by CHARLES WILLIAMS

First Line: WHY FROM THEIR OWN CONCERNS SHOULD THEY BE / BROUGHT?
Last Line: THAN SO TO SERVE THE ACCEPTABLE END?
Subject(s): FRIENDSHIP;

WHY from their own concerns should they be brought?
Surely no wit or subtle cunning delves
Into the strata and deep seam of thought
They could not mine more deftly for themselves!
Mere self-oblivion then? must it be so?
One perfect moment of pure charity
Fiery about the figment and the show
Of thought and sound and gesture that is me?
Happy if so their souls with Godhead kiss;
And be subdued, my proud revolting heart,
To be the negligible cause of this
Rather than hold their fancies by your art.
What lovelier office can befall a friend
Than so to serve the acceptable End?



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