| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 451. The Two Friends |
| | | By Charles Godfrey Leland |
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| I HAVE two friends—two glorious friends—two better could not be, | |
| And every night when midnight tolls they meet to laugh with me. | |
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| The first was shot by Carlist thieves—ten years ago in Spain. | |
| The second drowned near Alicante—while I alive remain. | |
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| I love to see their dim white forms come floating through the night, | 5 |
| And grieve to see them fade away in early morning light. | |
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| The first with gnomes in the Under Land is leading a lordly life, | |
| The second has married a mermaiden, a beautiful water-wife. | |
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| And since I have friends in the Earth and Sea—with a few, I trust, on high, | |
| ’T is a matter of small account to me—the way that I may die. | 10 |
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| For whether I sink in the foaming flood, or swing or the triple tree, | |
| Or die in my bed, as a Christian should, is all the same to me. | |
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