Lyric Poem · Friendship
Love and Friendship
by Emily Brontë · 1846
1Love is like the wild rose-briar,
2Friendship like the holly-tree —
3The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
4But which will bloom most contantly?
5The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
6Its summer blossoms scent the air;
7Yet wait till winter comes again
8And who wil call the wild-briar fair?
9Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
10And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
11That when December blights thy brow
12He may still leave thy garland green.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Love and Friendship” by Emily Brontë — quilloak.com/poems/love-and-friendship
Quick facts
- Poem
- Love and Friendship
- Poet
- Emily Brontë
- Published
- 1846
- Length
- 12 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
- Themes
- Friendship, Love, Nature
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 12 lines · one 12-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Emily Brontë1818–1848
- Source record
- PoetryDBLove and Friendship by emily-bronte, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1846
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 f17a57102e629ab3…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.