James Jeffrey Roche Quote

The love of man and woman is as fire
To warm, to light, but surely to consume
And self-consuming die…
But comrade-love is as a welding blast
Of candid flame and ardent temperature:
Glowing more fervent, it doth bind more fast;
And melting both but makes the union sure.
The dross alone is burnt—till at the last
The steel, if cold, is one and strong and pure.

My Comrade, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).