An Unknown Friend.
I've grown to love that unknown friend,
On whom my grateful thoughts depend;
And wish I might some message send
My gratitude expressing,
For bountiful, Thanksgiving cheer
That comes with each recurring year,
And proves "a friend is ever near,"
Whose love invokes my blessing.
On whom my grateful thoughts depend;
And wish I might some message send
My gratitude expressing,
For bountiful, Thanksgiving cheer
That comes with each recurring year,
And proves "a friend is ever near,"
Whose love invokes my blessing.
I marvel who that one may be,
Who kindly deigns to favor me
With such substantial sympathy,
And whether man or woman
Does this the welcome gift bestow—
More blest than I in doing so—
I'm sure the friend I long to know
Is more divine than human.
Who kindly deigns to favor me
With such substantial sympathy,
And whether man or woman
Does this the welcome gift bestow—
More blest than I in doing so—
I'm sure the friend I long to know
Is more divine than human.
My secret thoughts oft cling around
One whom true honor long hath crowned
Whose noble heart, by chance I found,
My devious way pursuing;
From whose right hand, where'er it goes,
True bounty, like a river, flows;
And still, the prudent left hand knows
Not what the right is doing.
One whom true honor long hath crowned
Whose noble heart, by chance I found,
My devious way pursuing;
From whose right hand, where'er it goes,
True bounty, like a river, flows;
And still, the prudent left hand knows
Not what the right is doing.
Again I wonder—till I fain
Believe the picture in my brain,
That fades but to return again,
Can surely be no other
Than One whom all unite to praise;
Who searches out life's thorny ways,
And to each fainting heart displays
The kindness of a brother.
Believe the picture in my brain,
That fades but to return again,
Can surely be no other
Than One whom all unite to praise;
Who searches out life's thorny ways,
And to each fainting heart displays
The kindness of a brother.
Thus every day I cogitate,
With anxious heart, and longing, wait
To know the friend whom happy Fate
To me hath kindly given;
But, if my hope I must resign,
And may not know, or take in mine
The hand that gives—so near divine—
It will be known in Heaven.
With anxious heart, and longing, wait
To know the friend whom happy Fate
To me hath kindly given;
But, if my hope I must resign,
And may not know, or take in mine
The hand that gives—so near divine—
It will be known in Heaven.