Then the gay sportive dreams, enwreathing now
Their frolic fancies round the slumberer’s brow,
Should yield to dreams of angels entering in
His young heart’s Eden, unprofaned by sin;
Then should his pleasant couch of leaves and flowers
Yield willing homage to the bliss of bowers
More beautiful than hers, and only given
In visions of the scenery of heaven;
Then should the music now around him heard,
The wind-harp’s song, the song of bee and bird,
Yield to thy chorused carollings sublime,
And sky-endomed cathedral’s chant and chime.
And then the longing of his life should be
To praise, to love, to worship thine and thee,
And when, my pastoral task of duty done,
I rest beneath the cold sepulchral stone,
Be his the delegated power to grace,
In surpliced sanctity, thy Altar-place;
To feed thy chosen flock with heavenly food,
Be their kind Shepherd, gentle, generous, good,
And, in the language of the Minstrel’s lay,
“Lure them to brighter worlds, and lead the way.”
Hark! a bugle’s echo comes,
Hark! a fife is singing,
Hark! the roll of far-off drums
Through the air is ringing!
