Classic Poem

I

O Guardian Angel! Patron Saints!
You, who have cared for me:
You, who have borne with all my plaints
So patiently!

I ask but one thing now: I pray,
God grant through you, each friend
Be mine within Eternal Day,
World without end.

II

P OOR powerless Sorrow! Helpless Death!
Think they to worst me in the end?
Come when they will, my Faith still saith:
I face them with a single friend.

Were I alone, I could not fight
The imperious Powers: I should but fear,
And tremble in the lonely night,
With never a friend of all friends near.

But in the eyes of every friend,
Voice, or the holding of his hand,
I learn, how love can never end:
Oh, Heart of God! I understand.

III

The haunting hopes, the perfect dreams,
The visionary joys, that fill
Mine heart with sudden gracious gleams:
Through friendship they grow clearer still.

Each friend possesses, each betrays,
Some secret of the eternal things:
Each one has walked celestial ways,
And held celestial communings.

The smiles upon their lips are bright
With beauty from the Face of God:
Their eyes keep something of that Light,
Which knows nor pause, nor period.

IV

O P ATRON Saints of all my friends!
O Guardian Angels of them all!
With them begins, with them still ends,
My prayer's most passionate call.

You know my voice: you know their names,
That wing so its least selfish tone
Across your white celestial flames,
And up to the White Throne.

Heaven were noTheaven, and they not there;
Heaven were no Heaven, my friends away:
O Saints and Angels! hear the prayer,
I pray you every day.