With a film in my eyes, I would not see the ladder based on earth,
Yet reaching to the cloud-crowned height, where the true Light has birth.
The beautiful angels passing up, with all our prayers to God,
Our tears and moans, our fading flowers, all stained with mire and sod--
And coming down; ah, many a time I have blessed the Lord above,
For His pure descending angels, bringing Faith, and Hope, and Love.
There was a time when all this wealth of glory was lost on me,
And I was like a rudderless ship, far out on the rocking sea,
I had a friend, oh that blessed word, we had been parted for years,
And I wandered one day to find him, my heart had no cloudy fears.
That day stands out in bold relief upon Memory's wreck-strewn shore,
Like a beacon light in the lighthouse, undimned by the rush and roar.
'Twas a day in the early June, the clover was red in the field,
And the zephyrs garnered the kisses, the gentle violets yield.
Birds sang, and the sunshine flickered out and about through the cloud,
What had a day like that to do with a pall, a coffin, a shroud?
I stood in a flower-decked churchyard, and on the procession came,
Why did I ask to be answered back, that his was the sleeper's name,
Nearer now to the dark brown earth the band of his brothers turned,
And on snowy aprons and collars of blue the merry sunbeams burned,
I, like a suddenly petrified stone, stood mid the crowd that day,
And with ears which seemed to be leaden, I listened and heard one say:

"Brother, we have met before,
Where the Tyler guards the door,
We have given the well-known sign,
That has blent our souls with thine,
Now this eve, thou giv'st no word,
Back to our souls deep stired,
For the Angel Tylers wait,