A child be­side a run­ning stream
Sat care­less­ly at play—
Her hands were fill’d with pret­ty flow­ers,
Which made her young heart gay:
She gazed up­on them with de­light,
They were so beau­ti­ful and bright.

And ev­er and anon a flow­er
Into the stream she cast,
Then clapp’d her hands, and smiled to see
How swift it glid­ed past:
And thus she threw them, one by one,
Till all her pret­ty flowers were gone.

Then when she found no more were left,
The lit­tle maid­en wept,
And wish’d, but wish’d in vain, that she
Her pret­ty flowers had kept:
The stream re­fused to hear her cry,
Give back my flow­ers! glided by.

And yet again her bit­ter plaints
Fell sad­ly on my ear:
It pain’d me much to see her grief,
Her use­less cry to hear;
For only Ec­ho caught the strain,
Give back my pret­ty flowers again!

And thus have child­ren oft the loss
Of gold­en hours to mourn;
The op­por­tu­ni­ties they lose
Will ne­ver more re­turn.
Dear lit­tle ones! seek Christ to-day,
For days of grace soon pass away.

The stream of time is flow­ing past—
Oh! see that you im­prove
The pre­cious sea­son you en­joy,
To serve the God of love;
Else soon your bit­ter cry must be,
Give back, give back, my flow­ers to me!

Randall Hunter Ballantyne
Pasture for Lambs, 1849