For in the consummation blest Of every wish and prayer, But yet, oh friend, revered and blest, How shall we check the bursting tear Self-sacrificing, upright, pure, Of feeble hope the guide, The widow in her lowly cell Must long thy loss deplore, The orphans wait thy step in vain, The path of duty and of zeal, Who now, like thee shalt tread? And deeply for ourselves we mourn cry, BEHOLD the babe, with ceaseless Just entering on mortality. Oh Saviour! thou for whom wert spread, 'Mid wondering brutes, the manger-bed, With pity view its feeble strife, And fan the trembling spark of life. The boy, with giddy footsteps, strays Through hidden Danger's devious maze; |