Explore "Three Friends" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Of all the blessings which my life has known, / I value most, and most praise God for three: / Want, Loneliness, and Pain, those comrades true,
Who masqueraded in the garb of foes / For many a year, and filled my heart with dread. / Yet fickle joys, like false, pretentious friends, / Have proved less worthy than this trio. First,
Want taught me labour, led me up the steep / And toilsome paths to hills of pure delight, / Trod only by the feet that know fatigue, / And yet press on until the heights appear.
Then loneliness and hunger of the heart / Sent me upreaching to the realms of space, / Till all the silences grew eloquent, / And all their loving forces hailed me friend.
Last, pain taught prayer! placed in my hand the staff / Of close communion with the over-soul, / That I might lean upon it to the end, / And find myself made strong for any strife.
And then these three who had pursued my steps / Like stern, relentless foes, year after year, / Unmasked, and turned their faces full on me, / And lo! they were divinely beautiful, / For through them shone the lustrous eyes of Love.