Friendship

Friendship
By Edna Jaques. Fournd in "Treasured Moments", Ideal Publishing Co, Milwaukee Win. 53201 copyright 1971

You have to work at friendship
Like a gardener with his flowers,
Cherish the tiny buds of love,
Treasure the happy hours,
Plant loving seeds for future bloom,
Pluck out the weeds and tears,
Water the soil with loving deeds
And firm it down with prayers
You have to work at friendship
With tenderness and zeal,
Drawing your friends into your heart,
With roots as strong as steel,
Shaping the growth with loving thought
As careful gardeners do,
If love and peace and happiness
Will ever bloom for you.
For friendship is a tender plant
Of bud and root and vine,
Frail as the mist above the hills,
Fragrant as the myrrh and pine,
Rooted in earth its branches reach
Beyond the farthest sea,
Yet clings in little tender words
Between my friend and me.
And like all worthwhile things it pays
Dividends in a hundred ways.