Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume I. Of Home: of Friendship. 1904. | | | | Poems of Home: II. For Children | | “By cool Siloam’s shady rill” | | Reginald Heber (1783–1826) |
| | | BY cool Siloam’s shady rill | |
| How sweet the lily grows! | |
| How sweet the breath beneath the hill | |
| Of Sharon’s dewy rose! | |
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| Lo, such the child whose early feet | 5 |
| The paths of peace have trod; | |
| Whose secret heart, with influence sweet, | |
| Is upward drawn to God. | |
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| By cool Siloam’s shady rill | |
| The lily must decay; | 10 |
| The rose that blooms beneath the hill | |
| Must shortly fade away. | |
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| And soon, too soon, the wintry hour | |
| Of man’s maturer age | |
| Will shake the soul with sorrow’s power, | 15 |
| And stormy passion’s rage. | |
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| O Thou, whose infant feet were found | |
| Within thy Father’s shrine, | |
| Whose years, with changeless virtue crowned, | |
| Were all alike divine; | 20 |
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| Dependent on thy bounteous breath, | |
| We seek thy grace alone, | |
| In childhood, manhood, age, and death, | |
| To keep us still thine own. | | | | |
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