After losing someone dear, the speaker refuses to let grief become a constant companion. She personifies grief as an unwanted friend who would sit at her table, walk beside her, and whisper about the dead, and she rejects that intimacy completely. There is a fierce, almost stubborn energy in the poem: tears feel like chains to her, and she wants freedom. She worries that if she gives in to mourning, it will shrink her into someone weak and needy, forever defined by loss and still loving the person she has lost. So she chooses a different companion, something the heart calls strength—deliberately described as “wingless” and “tearless,” as if emotional survival means staying grounded and refusing to be swept away. The mood is defiant and resolute, though the speaker’s insistence suggests how strong the pull of grief really is.
Friends — Summary
Grief shall not be my friend! She shall not be Companion of my table, path or bed. She shall not share my salt nor break my bread, Nor walk nor weep nor dream nor wake with me: I will not trust her mournful company. Nor listen to her whisperings of the dead, Why should I heed her somber eyelid's red? Tears are but chains and I, I would be free!
For grief would make a laggard of my will, And me, a puny thing of anguished need, A memory! And I would die at length, Close to the thought of you — and loving still: So will I choose a friend of stouter creed, The wingless, tearless thing the heart calls strength.