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Quotes & Poems

Friendship poems for a best friend

Updated

A good friendship poem says what is hard to say out loud. For a card, pick something short - four to eight lines fit inside most cards. For a best friend's wedding day, choose a piece you can read in under a minute, and practise it once. For a goodbye, whether a friend is moving away or has died, a few gentle lines often say more than a long speech. Here are famous poems about friendship by classic poets, each with its source and a plain-English note. Where we print only part of a poem, it is marked as an excerpt.

Short friendship poems

"The Arrow and the Song" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems, 1845

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

What it's about: You send things out into the world and lose track of them. Years later, the arrow turns up in a tree, and the song turns up in a friend who kept it all along. Twelve lines - one of the best short friendship poems for a best friend you have known for years.

"Who?" - Emily Dickinson

Poems, Third Series, 1896

My friend must be a bird,
Because it flies!
Mortal my friend must be,
Because it dies!
Barbs has it, like a bee.
Ah, curious friend,
Thou puzzlest me!

What it's about: A playful riddle. A friend can fly off like a bird and sting like a bee, and is only human - and still puzzles you. Seven short lines for a friend with a sense of humour. This is the text printed in 1896, ten years after Dickinson's death.

"Dedicatory Ode" (last lines of one section) - Hilaire Belloc

Lambkin's Remains, Oxford, 1900 (excerpt)

From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.

What it's about: From where life starts to wherever it ends, the only prize worth the effort is laughing with friends and loving them. The ode is long and full of jokes about Belloc's student friends at Oxford; these four lines are the part people remember. They fit neatly in a card.

Famous poems about friendship

"Auld Lang Syne" (excerpt) - Robert Burns

Scots Musical Museum, vol. 5, 1796 (Burns sent it to the editor in 1788)

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

Chorus. - For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
Sin' auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.

And there's a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

What it's about: Two old friends remember running over the hills ("braes") picking daisies ("gowans") and paddling in the stream ("burn"). Since then, wide seas have come between them - so they shake hands and share a drink of goodwill for old times' sake. We have left out one verse about drinks; the old printings also differ a little in spelling and wording, and we follow the edition linked below.

Sonnet 30 - William Shakespeare

Shake-speares Sonnets, 1609

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

What it's about: Sitting quietly with old memories, the speaker cries again for friends who have died and for everything lost along the way. Then one thought fixes it all: "dear friend", you. A sonnet (14 lines) about friendship that can make you cry, and the last two lines are often used alone in a card.

Poems for a best friend's wedding day

"On Friendship" (excerpt) - Kahlil Gibran

The Prophet, 1923

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 of pleasures.

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

What it's about: Give a friend your best, share the good times as well as the bad, and enjoy the small, everyday things together. The Prophet is written as short prose poems; this is the end of the chapter on friendship. It reads aloud in about 40 seconds, which suits a best friend's wedding day or a speech. For love poems for the couple, see our love poems.

From "Goblin Market" (excerpt) - Christina Rossetti

Goblin Market and Other Poems, 1862

For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.

What it's about: These are the closing lines of a long fairy-tale poem about two sisters, when one sister, now grown up, tells the children how the other saved her. On their own, they make a warm reading for a sister's wedding or a card for a sister who is also your best friend.

Poems for a friend who is moving away or has died

For a friend who is moving away, the last verses of "Auld Lang Syne" above ("seas between us braid hae roar'd") are a traditional choice for a leaving party. For a friend who has died, Shakespeare's Sonnet 30 above is gentle and short. Our funeral poems page has a section of poems for the loss of a friend, including lines from Tennyson's In Memoriam and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Requiem". For a birthday card instead, see our birthday poems for a friend.

Quotes about friendship

From Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Friendship" (Essays, first series, 1841):

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

What they mean: A real friend is someone you can be fully honest with, and the way to find one is to be one yourself. We print the wording of Emerson's later revised text; the 1841 first edition has the same words with slightly different commas. More sourced lines are on our quotes page.

FAQ

What is the most famous poem about friendship?

Robert Burns's "Auld Lang Syne" is probably the best known. Burns sent it to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788, and it was first printed in the fifth volume in 1796. The Scots title means roughly "old long since" - for old times' sake.

What poem can I read at my best friend's wedding?

The friendship lines from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet (1923), printed above, take under a minute to read. For a poem about the couple's love, Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 is on our love poems page.

What is a short poem for a friend who has died?

Shakespeare's Sonnet 30 (1609) ends "But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, / All losses are restor'd and sorrows end." For more, see the loss-of-a-friend section of our funeral poems, with Stevenson's "Requiem" (Underwoods, 1887).

Is Gibran's The Prophet in the public domain?

Yes, in the US: it was published in 1923, and US works from 1923 entered the public domain on 1 January 2019. Gibran died in 1931, so it is also out of copyright in countries that protect works for 70 years after the author's death.

Sources

Not the former quotesandpoems.com - an independent collection of public-domain poems and original writing.