Ah tiny limbs! 'twas hard to know
How best to strike the fatal blow:
Too wide the sword-blades are to smite
Those throats so silken-fragile, slight.
O horrid sight! the tender bones
Are dashed against the jagged stones:
Sightless and mangled there they lie,
Poor babes! untimely doomed to die.
Perchance the still deep river laves
Their bodies thrust into the waves:
The current with their sighing sighs,
Sobs with their latest, broken cries.
Ye flowers of martyrdom, all hail!
Of rising morn pure blossoms frail!
By Jesu's foe were ye downcast,
Like budding roses by the blast.
How best to strike the fatal blow:
Too wide the sword-blades are to smite
Those throats so silken-fragile, slight.
O horrid sight! the tender bones
Are dashed against the jagged stones:
Sightless and mangled there they lie,
Poor babes! untimely doomed to die.
Perchance the still deep river laves
Their bodies thrust into the waves:
The current with their sighing sighs,
Sobs with their latest, broken cries.
Ye flowers of martyrdom, all hail!
Of rising morn pure blossoms frail!
By Jesu's foe were ye downcast,
Like budding roses by the blast.
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