Edgar Allen Poe

William Shakespeare

Copyright © GW 2007 Poems

Great poets in history have made a habit of penning verses for each other in response to any number of personal relationships. It was their way of paying respect to their closest friends. If someone might buy a gift for a friend today, Shakespeare would have written that person a sonnet. Which is something Shakespeare did do on occasion. Sonnet 104, for example, speaks to a close friend with whom he treasures the three summers they spent together. The poem reads similar to many of his love sonnets, and in fact has been debated for some time as many believe it is in fact a love poem.



Other poets used friendship as a metaphor, comparing the closeness of a friend to any number of other experiences. For example, in Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul Unto Itself” she wrote:

The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend  – 
Or the most agonizing Spy  – 
An Enemy  –  could send  – 

Secure against its own  – 
No treason it can fear  – 
Itself  –  its Sovereign  –  of itself
The Soul should stand in Awe  – 

She is not writing about a close friend, but her own soul and the numerous masks it takes on. However, the same could be said about a close friend who is never quite as disarmed as we would like to believe.