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| TO that green hill, the shepherds’ haunt, | |
| Why speed the children’s feet? | |
| And who the Youth that sits alone, | |
| The clamorous flock to greet? | |
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| His hands are laid above their heads, | 5 |
| Their faces at His knee: | |
| His looks are looks of love; yet seem | |
| Something beyond to see. | |
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| The simple townsmen cross the hill, | |
| And bid the throng away, | 10 |
| “Nor press around the stranger youth, | |
| Nor by the fold delay.” | |
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| As one who smiles and wakes, He lifts | |
| A child upon His knee: | |
| “God’s kingdom is of such as these; | 15 |
| So let them come to Me.” | |
| |
| —Ah, Lord and Christ! Thy perfect heart | |
| No fond excess could touch! | |
| But man’s best strength is feebleness, | |
| And we may love too much! | 20 |
| |
| Yet maim’d the man, or poor in blood, | |
| Who glows not with delight | |
| Whene’er the little ones go by | |
| In casual daily sight; | |
| |
| Or when the child at mother’s knee, | 25 |
| His altar, lisps a prayer, | |
| And perfect faith, and utter love, | |
| And Christ Himself, is there; | |
| |
| Or when the little hands are clasp’d | |
| To beg some baby grace, | 30 |
| And all the beauty of the dawn | |
| Comes rose-red o’er the face; | |
| |
| Or when some elder one from sport | |
| Her smaller sister wiles, | |
| And two bright heads o’ershade the book; | 35 |
| Half study, and half smiles. | |
| |
| —Ah, Lord and Christ! Thy perfect heart | |
| No fond excess could touch! | |
| Yet when that innocence we see, | |
| How can we love too much? | 40 |
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| They twine around our heart of hearts; | |
| Their spell we seek in vain;— | |
| Go, ask the linnet why he sings,— | |
| He can but sing again! | |
| |
| To winter-life their bloom and breath | 45 |
| Renew a later spring, | |
| O dewy roses of the dawn, | |
| Fresh from God’s gardening! | |
| |
| Earth’s treasures waste with use; but Thine, | |
| O Lord! by lessening grow; | 50 |
| From love’s pure fount the more we take, | |
| The more the waters flow. | |
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| How should we prize the things unseen, | |
| Not prizing what we see? | |
| How turn away Thy little ones | 55 |
| Without forbidding Thee? | |
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| The Shepherd wills not we should stint | |
| Or count our kisses o’er; | |
| Nor bids us love His lambs the less, | |
| But Him Who loves them, more. | 60 |
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