With gentle words and gracious look,
The loving Saviour spoke and smiled;
When in His welcoming arms He took
A happy child, and blessed the child.
For childhood's earliest day begins
In the bright heaven of innocence,
Ere wand'ring thoughts or tempting sins
Seduce its erring footsteps thence.
Would that, as following years roll on,
Life's infant brightness might endure,
And leave us, when those years are gone,
Pure, as a happy child is pure!
O God! who veil'st the future o'er,
Through whose thick darkness none can see,
Protect, preserve, redeem, restore
The innocence of infancy.