A First Series of Hymns and Songs/Sacred Songs/The Angelus Bells

by Cecilia Mary Caddell

3. The Angelus Bells.
(A Song for Three Children.)

First Child. Morning.

Hail, Mary! now the sun is up:
All things around look glad and bright,
And heatherbell and buttercup
Shake off the dewdrops of the night.
The lambs are frisking in the fields,
The lark is singing in the sky;
And man his wakening tribute yields
To thee and thy sweet Son on high.

Second Child. Noon.

Hail, Mary! midway in the sky
The noontide sun its lustre sheds;
The field-flowers almost seem to die,
So low they hang their drooping heads.
The lambs have sought the woodland shade,
The lark has ceas'd his note of glee;
And pausing in the furrow'd glade,
The ploughman lifts his hat to thee.

Third Child. Evening.

Hail, Mary! now the sun is far
Adown his western path of light;
The flowers, beneath the evening star,
Drink up the dewdrops of the night.
The lambs are by their mothers laid,
The lark is brooding o'er its nest;
And when the evening prayer is made,
E'en busy man will be at rest.

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