LINES ON HIS NEW CHILD-SWEETHEART.

I hold it a religious duty

To love and worship children’s beauty;

They’ve least the taint of earthly clod,—

They’re freshest from the hand of God.

With heavenly looks, they make us sure

The heaven that made them must be pure.

We love them not in earthly fashion,

But with a beatific passion.

I chanced to, yesterday, behold