Time was when I loved at still midnight to come,
My children, to see you asleep in your room;
The cross, holy sign on your foreheads to trace,
And commend you in prayer to the love and the grace
Of our gracious and merciful God.

To keep gentle guard, and watch over your rest,
To think how your spirits were sinless and blest,
In hope to look forward to long happy years
Of blithe, merry youth, without sorrows or fears,
Oh, how sweet, how delicious it was!

But now, if I go, all is silence, all gloom;
None sleep in that crib, nothing breathes in that room;
The light that should burn at the image is gone:
Alas! so it is, children now I have none,
And my heart, how it painfully throbs!

Dear children, at that same midnight do ye,
As I once prayed for you, now in turn pray for me;
Me who loved well the cross on your foreheads to trace;
Now commend me in turn to the mercy and grace
Of our gracious and merciful God.