Page:Poems McDonald.djvu/55

There sat, within a quiet room,
 A mother, young and fair,
And close beside her knee, there knelt
 A cherub boy in prayer:
For every living thing he loves,
 That prayer ascends to heaven,
While for himself, he humbly asks
 'Each sin may be forgiven.

And oft, in after years, when care
 Shall bow his spirit down,
And the world, the cold, unfeeling world,
 Shall meet him with a frown;
Or when, allured from virtue's path,
 He treads a dangerous way,
O, he will turn to this blest hour,
 When first he knelt to pray.

And the kind hand, which then was laid
 Upon his silken hair,
And the soft voice, which taught him first
 His simple words of prayer—