And it seemed to Graham that nowhere, save only in a few poems, and
in one or two passages of Plato, he could find the expression of a
sentiment even approximating to that he felt for his friend. Many books
he turned over, and such lines as caught his fancy he read again and
again until he knew them by heart. Those portions of the _Sonnets_ of
Shakespeare which were least rhetorical, which appeared to spring from
a genuine feeling, he learned in this way. Was not _his_ friend, too,
the ‘lord of his love,’ the ‘herald of the spring,’ the ‘lovely boy,’
the ‘rose of beauty,’ ‘music to hear’?――
‘For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart.’