GOD'S blessing rest upon thee,
     My precious little boy;
Make thee thy mother's comfort still,
     And still thy father's joy
Conduct thee, through life's pilgrimage,
     In purity and peace;
And take thee, to that blessed world,
     Where sin and sorrow cease.

Long time, I've loved thy father,
     Thy gentle mother, too;
And tenderest cords, have twined our hearts,
     Across the waters blue
And now, I sit beside their hearth,
     An honoured, happy guest,
And feel, how truly Christian home
     Is type of heavenly rest.

Dear child, how opportunely,
     Thy coming has been timed,
And providential orderings,
     With human wishes, chimed;
That hearts, which long in unison,
     Have beat, beyond the sea,
Should flow together, at the font,
     And blend themselves, in thee.

Dear child of dearest parents,
     I take thee to my heart,
To be, as they, so long have been,
     Its parcel and its part;
To grow, like sweetest flower, beside
     That sainted Bishop's * tomb.
And give, its sweetest memories,
     New fragrance and new bloom.

Dear child, with Thornton, Forster, Jebb
     My name is knit in thee,
All written in that Blessed Book,
     One Christian family.
So, when the dead shall all come forth,
     At that clear trumpet's sound,
May each dear name, recorded in
     The Lamb's own Book, be found.

STISTED RECTORY, August 15, 1841.

* Bishop Jebb, "the good Bishop of Limerick." Mr. Forster was his Domestic Chaplain, and his "own familiar friend." The excellent Henry Thornton, M. P., his maternal grandfather; Miss Isabella Thornton was a god-mother.

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