REACH YOUR HAND TO ME

Reach your hand to me, my friend,

With its heartiest caress —

Sometime there will come an end

To its present faithfulness —

Sometime I may ask in vain

For the touch of it again,

When between us land or sea

Holds it ever back from me.

Sometime I may need it so,

Groping somewhere in the night,

It will seem to me as though

Just a touch, however light,

Would make all the darkness day,

And along some sunny way

Lead me through an April-shower

Of my tears to this fair hour.

O the present is too sweet

To go on forever thus!

Round the corner of the street

Who can say what waits for us?—

Meeting — greeting, night and day,

Faring each the selfsame way —

Still somewhere the path must end —

Reach your hand to me, my friend!