Dear be the Church, that, watching o'er the needs

Of Infancy, provides a timely shower

Whose virtue changes to a Christian Flower

A Growth from sinful Nature's bed of weeds! --

Fitliest beneath the sacred roof proceeds

The ministration; while parental Love

Looks on, and Grace descendeth from above

As the high service pledges now, now pleads.

There, should vain thoughts outspread their wings and fly

To meet the coming hours of festal mirth,

The tombs -- which hear and answer that brief cry,

The Infant's notice of his Second Birth, --

Recal the wandering Soul to sympathy

With what man hopes from Heaven, yet fears from Earth.