My heart before the God of innocence I lay me,
The tears I weep he doth behold:
My sorrowing he hath healed, his shield and buckler stay me,
The wretched are his care of old.
Blest be thy name, my God, who gayest me for guerdon
Innocence and its noble pride!
Thou who, to guard the sleep that must this body burden,
Wilt watch my desolate bier beside.
In life's gay feasting hall, a luckless reveller bidden
One hour I sit, one hour I die:
I die, and on the grave where soon I shall be hidden
No man will come to heave a sigh.
Hail! fields I used to love: hail! hedges' leafy sweetness,
And lonely, laughing woodland prime;
Heaven, canopy of earth, and nature's fine completeness,
All hail! All hail, this one last time!
Ah! long may those my friends behold your hallowed beauty,
Deaf though they be to my good-byes!
May they die full of days, bewept of tender duty!
May one that loves them close their eyes!