Once a wee bit baby darling,
Pure as beauty, sweet as grace,
Sat upon my knee and thrilled me
With her rare bewitching face;
Face so fair, so charmed, so pregnant
With the glow of buoyant soul,
That the angels paid her homage;
And, disputing earth's control,
Trooped about her crib and worshipped
Baby darling's virgin soul.

Lingered there and learned to love her,
And to envy us the child,
Till our jealousies grew frenzied,
As the spirit world beguiled,
Lured and charmed, and so enrapt her
With the ditties of the skies,
That she pined and looked the languor,
Through her fever-stricken eyes.
All our mortal love we gave her,
But the angels: - paradise.

Yes, they took her, jealous angels,
Thus to take the baby child,
All because she was the fairest
That e'er looked on them and smiled.
Up in glory where they keep her,
Can they, will they really be
Half as careful, half as anxious
Of our baby's weal as we?
Did they really give her fever,
In their joyous ecstacy?

Sick of pain, she daily wilted
Through a typhus fever's blight,
Till her spirit dropped its body -
Far from earthly things took flight,
With the cherubim then journeyed,
Up in yon ethereal dome,
Purest, fairest being, truly,
That e'er through it flitted home
To Elysian fields of glory,
Where the Savior bids all come.