Two small children have been performing a shortened version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which their father has prepared for them. It begins when Nick Bottom the weaver appears on stage with a donkey’s head, and it ends when the same fellow asks a couple of the little fairies to scratch his ears. The boy, Dan, plays Bottom, Puck, and the fairies, and the girl, Una, plays Titania. They have so much fun with it, they do it three times over, out in the fields by themselves, and then they sit down for a little supper of eggs and biscuits, when from the bushes, “in the very spot where Dan had stood as Puck they saw a small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub nose, slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled face.” It’s the Puck himself! And from Puck, and the historical and fantastical figures he calls up, the children go on a delightful spree of learning, about England and Rome and all the world around, partly true as history and partly even truer as myth — much better than their ordinary schooling, which they don’t like at all. And believe it or not, our Hymn of the Week comes from this book, Puck of Pook’s Hill, by that large-hearted man of the world, Rudyard Kipling, whose specific religious beliefs I would not venture to try to describe. Let’s just say that he believed in God the Father, and in objective good and evil, and in the old virtues of courage, honesty, fidelity, fair play, and piety — if by that we mean what the old Romans meant by it, the virtue of doing your duty by your parents, your forebears, your country, and God.

Share Word & Song by Anthony Esolen

I said that the hymn comes from the book, but that’s not enough. The hymn is placed at the end, and the climax of the book; they’re the last words. It’s entitled “The Children’s Song.” Of the eight verses that Kipling wrote, the first and the last are patriotic; the first one is clearly meant to be sung by children, and perhaps the last one also. So if you find the hymn in a hymnal, you may find the six verses in the middle; the title “Father in Heaven, who lovest all,” is the first line of the second stanza. The Hymnal 1940 omits the first stanza and prints the final stanza in italics, as a signal that you need not sing it if your purpose or your setting is not specifically patriotic.
You will notice that all the verses except the first (Kipling’s second, that is) begin with our Word of the Week, teach. I am fond of those verses. I don’t know whether anyone would write them now, because they all suppose that we — especially the young — will encounter opposition to the virtues I’ve named, opposition within and without, and not usually from enemies, either. Our very friends will lead us astray, not on purpose, but just because they are rarely any wiser than we ourselves are. That’s in the fourth verse. In the fifth, we pray for the strength not to hurt the weak, not even in our thoughts, much less in our deeds. And lest we think that we can fulfill that duty to restrain ourselves by adopting a political position regarding what to do about the poor, I caution myself and everybody to keep in mind that jolly human pastime of ganging up on somebody when he’s down, and that person may be well off in things but much in need of a friend, or somebody to hear his case fairly. In the third verse, we pray for self-rule, to be “controlled and cleanly, night and day,” and why not? I’m not talking here about the cleanliness that uses ammonia or bleach, though that’s not to be scoffed at, but the mysterious cleanness of heart that Jesus praises, and which is often and not unattractively made manifest in cleanliness of speech and manner.
Read the words with care, and, since we haven’t found any clip of this hymn being sung, try to work it out to the bright and bold Welsh melody, LLEDROD, named after a small village in Cardiganshire.

Land of our birth, we pledge to thee Our love and toil in the years to be, When we are grown and take our place As men and women with our race. 1 Father in heaven, who lovest all, O help thy children when they call, That they may build from age to age An undefiled heritage. 2 Teach us to bear the yoke in youth, With steadfastness and careful truth, That in our time thy grace may give The truth whereby the nations live. 3 Teach us to rule ourselves alway, Controlled and cleanly night and day, That we may bring, if need arise, No maimed or worthless sacrifice. 4 Teach us to look in all our ends On thee for Judge and not our friends, That we, with thee, may walk uncowed By fear or favor of the crowd. 5 Teach us the strength that cannot seek By deed or thought to hurt the week, That under thee we may possess Man's strength to comfort man's distress. 6 Teach us delight in simple things, And mirth that has no bitter springs; Forgiveness free of evil done, And love to all men 'neath the sun. Land of our birth, our faith, our pride, For whose dear sake our fathers died, O Motherland, we pledge to thee Head, heart, and hand through the years to be.

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