Classic Poem

I give thee my hand, rare spirit of beauty and splendour;
My soul would impart
New courage and gladness. Brave be thou and yet tender
As the love in thy heart.

With thee, sore oppressed by thy burden of faintness and sorrow,
Thy brother, I stand,
Till we rise step by step to the noon of a greater to-morrow
In hope's pleasant land.

We two shall walk in paths of achievement together
Till the purple light breaks
O'er fields of a dawn that gleams like a fluttering feather
Along the grey peaks.

Oh! boundless the life in that day of our utmost decision,
When body and soul
And being athrill, we climb to the summits of vision,
The gates of the goal.

We two, hand in hand, to hilltops of triumph ascending
Where mountain paths meet,
Shall find amid glooms and glories windswept and unending,
Life rich and complete.

What landscapes of joy! What wings of the sunrise for power!
What seraphim burning!
I find in thee all for which spirit and sense till this hour
Were hungrily yearning.

Thus on, till the light of all being is rippling around us
On paths we have trod;
Till the sun bursts aloft o'er the hills where the morning hath found us
Entempled with God.