We Have Been Friends Together

Close friendships often face moments of crises due to miscommunication. This sort of crisis is displayed here. While the friendship in Norton’s poem has existed since “infancy” (Line 4) and has survived both “[i]n sunshine and in shade” (Line 2), some rift now threatens its progress forward. While the speaker thinks the argument is over a “light word” (Line 8), it is a much deeper cut for the friend. The friend is visibly upset and the speaker notes “coldness dwells within [their] heart” (Line 5), suggesting a deep emotional fissure. To mend this sense of being pitted against each other, the speaker uses two techniques to solve the problem. The first is to remind the friend of their shared experience while the second is to make the friend think about their future. As children, the friends “played” (Line 4) together, and in their youth they shared amusements, happiness, and “hope” (Line 11). Even when those “hopes” (line 20) were dashed, they comforted each other when they “wept bitter tears” (Line 18). A key way to mitigate a conflict is to remind the opposing party of a common cause or what brought the affected people together in the first place. The speaker also attempts to mend things by forcing the friend to think of the future.