The Holy Innocents

Dream not my soul of cloudless days,
If thou wouldst follow in the ways
Which thy dear Saviour trod;
Strait is the gate, the pathway steep,
Hard to be found, and hard to keep,
Which leads us up to God.

With no delusive hope of joy,
Such as experience must destroy,
Are we by Christ beguiled;
No votive flowers deck His bed,
But martyr heaps of infant-dead
Surround the Royal Child.

Would we His faithful followers be,
We must in this true warning see
Of future grief and care;
And feel that love were little worth,
Which shrinks from any cross on earth
We may for Jesus bear.

O well it is that, when our sight
Of duty in the dazzling light
Of glory might be lost,
The Church, her martyr's triple shade
A blest retreat for souls has made,
Where they may count the cost; —

And ask if, for the Lord who gave
His life their precious souls to save,
They would their lives lay down;
For he who will not suffer loss,
Or meekly bear for Christ his cross,
Shall never wear a crown.

O Saviour! for whom infants died,
"Whom even infants glorified,
In life and death the same;
Grant us, by pure and holy lives,
And faith, which life and death survives,
To glorify Thy name.