SLEEP, baby, sleep! Thy father watches his sheep; Thy mother is shaking the dreamland tree, And down comes a little dream on thee. Sleep, baby, sleep! Sleep, baby, sleep! The large stars are the sheep; The little stars are the lambs, I guess; Sleep, baby, sleep! Our Saviour loves His sheep; He is the Lamb of God on high, Who for our sakes came down to die. Sleep, baby, sleep! - From the German. THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL. HAVE you not heard the poets tell The gates of heaven were left ajar; Wandering out of Paradise, She saw this planet, like a star, Hung in the glistening depths of even, Its bridges, running to and fro, O'er which the white-winged angels go, Bearing the holy dead to heaven. She touched a bridge of flowers, those feet, So light they did not bend the bells Of the celestial asphodels! They fell like dew upon the flowers, Into this world of ours. She came and brought delicious May. Like sunlight in and out the leaves, And o'er the porch the trembling vine How sweetly, softly, twilight fell! Came to this world of ours! O Babie, dainty Babie Bell, So full of meaning, pure and bright, Of those oped gates of Paradise. Was love so lovely born : We felt we had a link between The land beyond the morn. And woke the chords of joy and pain, Like violets after rain. And now the orchards, which were white The grapes hung purpling in the grange; Her lissome form more perfect grew, And in her features we could trace, In softened curves, her mother's face! Her angel-nature ripened too. We thought her lovely when she came But she was holy, saintly now:Around her pale angelic brow We saw a slender ring of flame ! God's hand had taken away the seal That held the portals of her speech; And oft she said a few strange words Whose meaning lay beyond our reach. She never was a child to us, We never held her being's key, We could not teach her holy things; It came upon us by degrees : We saw its shadow ere it fell, The knowledge that our God had sent We shuddered with unlanguaged pain, Like sunshine into rain. We cried aloud in our belief, 66 "O, smite us gently, gently, God! Our hearts are broken, Babie Bell! At last he came, the messenger, The messenger from unseen lands: Out of this world of ours! THE MORNING-GLORY. WE wreathed about our darling's head Her little face looked out beneath, So full of life and light, So lit as with a clear sunrise, That we could only say, So always from that happy time |