Reach Your Hand To Me

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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!

© James Whitcomb Riley