By Cool Siloam's Shady Rill

  By cool Siloam's shady rill     How sweet the lily grows!   How sweet the breath beneath the hill     Of Sharon's dewy rose!   Lo, such the child whose early feet     The paths of peace have trod;   Whose secret heart, with influence sweet,     Is upward drawn to God.   By cool Siloam's shady rill     The lily must decay;   The rose that blooms beneath the hill     Must shortly fade away.   And soon, too soon, the wintry hour     Of man's maturer age   Will shake the soul with sorrow's power,     And stormy passion's rage.   O Thou, whose infant feet were found     Within thy Father's shrine,   Whose years, with changeless virtue crowned,     Were all alike divine;    Dependent on thy bounteous breath,     We seek thy grace alone,   In childhood, manhood, age, and death,     To keep us still thine own. REGINALD HEBER