THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. AVE you not heard the poets tell How came the dainty Babie Bell The gates of heaven were left ajar: She saw this planet like a star Hung in the glistening depths of even, Its bridges, running to and fro, She touched a bridge of flowers,-those feet, 52 THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. They fell like dew upon the flowers, She came, and brought delicious May. And o'er the porch the trembling vine How swiftly, softly, twilight fell! When the dainty Babie Bell Came to this world of ours! O Babie, dainty Babie Bell, What woman-nature filled her eyes, What poetry within them lay: THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. Those deep and tender twilight eyes, Of those oped gates of Paradise. Was love so lovely born: We felt we had a link between This real world and that unseen,— And for the love of those dear eyes, And now the orchards, which were white The clustered apples burnt like flame, 54 THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. The soft-cheeked peaches blushed and fell, The grapes hung purpling in the grange: Her lissom form more perfect grew, In soften'd curves, her mother's face. We thought her lovely when she came, But she was holy, saintly now. That held the portals of her speech; She never was a child to us, We never held her being's key: It came upon us by degrees: THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. The knowledge that our God had sent We shuddered with unlanguaged pain, And all our thoughts ran into tears We cried aloud in our belief, "Oh, smite us gently, gently, God! We wove the roses round her brow, White buds, the summer's drifted snow, Wrapt her from head to foot in flowers! Out of this world of ours! T. B. ALDRICH. 55 |