Verse 1
By cool Siloam’s shady rill
How sweet the lily grows!
How sweet the breath beneath the hill
Of Sharon’s dewy rose!
Verse 2
Lo, such the child whose early feet
The paths of peace have trod;
Whose secret heart, with influence sweet,
Is upward drawn to God.
Verse 3
By cool Siloam’s shady rill
The lily must decay;
The rose that blooms beneath the hill
Must shortly fade away.
Verse 4
And soon, too soon, the wintry hour
Of man’s maturer age
Will shake the soul with sorrow’s power
And stormy passion’s rage.
Verse 5
O Thou, whose infant feet were found
Within Thy Father’s shrine,
Whose years, with changeless virtue crowned,
Were all alike Divine;
Verse 6
Dependent on Thy bounteous breath,
We seek Thy grace alone,
In childhood, manhood, age, and death,
To keep us still Thine own.
Reginald Heber, “By Cool Siloam's Shady Rill”