My Beads

Sweet, blessed beads! I would not part      With one of you for richest gem      That gleams in kingly diadem;     Ye know the history of my heart.     For I have told you every grief      In all the days of twenty years,      And I have moistened you with tears,     And in your decades found relief.     Ah! time has fled, and friends have failed      And joys have died; but in my needs      Ye were my friends, my blessed beads!     And ye consoled me when I wailed.     For many and many a time, in grief,      My weary fingers wandered round      Thy circled chain, and always found     In some Hail Mary sweet relief.     How many a story you might tell      Of inner life, to all unknown;      I trusted you and you alone,     But ah! ye keep my secrets well.     Ye are the only chain I wear --      A sign that I am but the slave,      In life, in death, beyond the grave,     Of Jesus and His Mother fair.