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 self-same way -         Still somewhere the path must end. -         Reach your hand to me, my friend!