"through thee the rose is red"

i was setting up my feed reader in my mail client (to have posts come to me rather than have me go to them... it was high time), and i ran into this soul-touching poem a had posted not too long ago. (no wonder i have so many posts, if i keep lifting poems from everyone else's thus!) another one of those things that, although i enjoyed on a first read, only hit home this morning. after all, there must be a cosy nook created within for the masterpiece to settle into. it was today.

Friendship
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness
Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again-
O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red,
All things through thee take nobler form
And look beyond the earth,
The mill-round of our fate appears
A sun-path in thy worth.
Me too thy nobleness has taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.