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.