Pretty sure that's it Lin - you didn't quote any author, etc

I seem to remember it being in my Queensland Primary School Reader in the 1950s... if not there, it was somewhere else that I remember accessing a lot.

"Father, dear father, come home with me now,
The clock in the steeple strikes one;"

.. and the dying child - rip the heartstrings out by the handfuls.... :-)

ahhh - those were the days... anyone got a tune for this?

Robin - deep in Reminiscences... :-)