The Baby
Where did you come from, baby dear?
_Out of the everywhere into the here._
Where did you get your eyes so blue?
_Out of the sky as I came through._
What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
_Some of the starry spikes left in._
Where did you get that little tear?
_I found it waiting when I got here._
What makes your forehead so smooth and high?
_A soft hand stroked it as I went by._
What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
_Something better than anyone knows._
Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
_Three angels gave me at once a kiss._
Where did you get that pearly ear?
_G.o.d spoke, and it came out to hear._
Where did you get those arms and hands?
_Love made itself into hooks and bands._
Feet, whence did you come, you darling things?
_From the same box as the cherubs" wings._
How did they all just come to be you?
_G.o.d thought about me, and so I grew._
But how did you come to us, you dear?
_G.o.d thought of you, and so I am here._
_George Macdonald._
Song of the Sea
The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth"s wide regions round; It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies, Or like a cradled creature lies.
I"m on the sea! I"m on the sea!
I am where I would ever be; With the blue above and the blue below, And silence wheresoe"er I go.
If a storm should come and awake the deep What matter? _I_ shall ride and sleep.
I love, oh, how I love to ride On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide, When every mad wave drowns the moon, Or whistles aloud his tempest tune, And tells how goeth the world below, And why the southwest blasts do blow.
I never was on the dull, tame sh.o.r.e, But I loved the great sea more and more, And back I flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its mother"s nest; And a mother she _was_, and _is_, to me, For I was born on the open sea!
I"ve lived, since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers a sailor"s life, With wealth to spend and a power to range, But never have sought nor sighed for change; And Death, whenever he comes to me, Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea.
_Barry Cornwall._
Diffidence
"I"m after axin", Biddy dear--"
And here he paused a while To fringe his words the merest mite With something of a smile-- A smile that found its image In a face of beauteous mold, Whose liquid eyes were peeping From a broidery of gold.
"I"ve come to ax ye, Biddy dear, If--" then he stopped again, As if his heart had bubbled o"er And overflowed his brain.
His lips were twitching nervously O"er what they had to tell, And timed the quavers with the eyes That gently rose and fell.
"I"ve come--" and then he took her hands And held them in his own, "To ax--" and then he watched the buds That on her cheeks had blown,-- "Me purty dear--" and then he heard The throbbing of her heart, That told how love had entered in And claimed its every part.
"Och! don"t be tazin" me," said she, With just the faintest sigh, "I"ve sinse enough to see you"ve come, But what"s the reason why?"
"To ax--" and once again the tongue Forbore its sweets to tell, "To ax--_if Mrs. Mulligan, Has any pigs to sell_."
Curfew Must Not Ring To-night
Slowly England"s sun was setting o"er the hilltops far away, Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day, And the last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,-- He with footsteps slow and weary, she with sunny floating hair; He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she with lips all cold and white, Struggling to keep back the murmur, "Curfew must not ring to-night."
"s.e.xton," Bessie"s white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old, With its turrets tall and gloomy, with its walls dark, damp and cold, "I"ve a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is nigh; Cromwell will not come till sunset," and her lips grew strangely white As she breathed the husky whisper: "Curfew must not ring to-night."
"Bessie," calmly spoke the s.e.xton--every word pierced her young heart Like the piercing of an arrow, like a deadly poisoned dart,-- "Long, long years I"ve rung the curfew from that gloomy shadowed tower; Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight hour; I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right; Now I"m old I will not falter,--curfew, it must ring to-night."
Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow.
As within her secret bosom Bessie made a solemn vow.
She had listened while the judges read without a tear or sigh: "At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die."
And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright; In an undertone she murmured, "Curfew must not ring to-night."
With quick step she bounded forward, sprung within the old church door, Left the old man treading slowly paths so oft he"d trod before; Not one moment paused the maiden, but with eye and cheek aglow Mounted up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro,-- As she climbed the dusty ladder on which fell no ray of light, Up and up,--her white lips saying: "Curfew must not ring to-night."
She has reached the topmost ladder; o"er her hangs the great, dark bell; Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to h.e.l.l.