THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL

Have you not heard the poets tell
How came the dainty Babie Bell
Into this world of ours?

The gates of heaven were left ajar:
With folded hands and dreamy eyes,
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,

Then all the air grew strangely sweet!
And thus came dainty Babie Bell
Into this world of ours.

She came and brought delicious May:
The swallows built beneath the eaves;
Like sunlight in and out the leaves

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So full of meaning, pure and bright
As if she yet stood in the light
Of those oped gates of Paradise!
And so we loved her more and more:
Ah, never in our hearts before

Was love so lovely born:

We felt we had a link between
This real world and that unseen—

The land beyond the morn!
And for the love of those dear eyes,

For love of her whom God led forth
(The mother's being ceased on earth
When Babie came from Paradise)—
For love of Him who smote our lives,

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And woke the chords of joy and pain,
We said Dear Christ!-our hearts bent down
Like violets after rain.

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Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers,

Dipping the jewels out of the sea,

To sprinkle them over the land in showers!

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We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed
The white of their leaves, the amber grain
Shrunk in the wind-and the lightning now
Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain!

AFTER THE RAIN

The rain has ceased, and in my room
The sunshine pours an airy flood;
And on the church's dizzy vane
The ancient Cross is bathed in blood.

From out the dripping ivy-leaves,
Antiquely-carven, gray, and high,
A dormer, facing westward, looks
Upon the village like an eye:

And now it glimmers in the sun,
A globe of gold, a disc, a speck:
And in the belfry sits a Dove
With purple ripples on her neck.

PAMPINEA

AN IDYL

Lying by the summer sea

I had a dream of Italy.

Chalky cliffs and miles of sand,
Mossy reefs and salty caves,

Then the sparkling emerald waves,
Faded; and I seemed to stand,
Myself a languid Florentine,
In the heart of that fair land.
And in a garden cool and green,
Boccaccio's own enchanted place,
I met Pampinea, face to face-
A maid so lovely that to see
Her smile is to know Italy!

Her hair was like a coronet

Upon her Grecian forehead set,
Where one gem glistened sunnily

Like Venice, when first seen at sea!

I saw within her violet eyes

The starlight of Italian skies,
And on her brow and breast and hand
The olive of her native land.

And knowing how in other times
Her lips were ripe with Tuscan rhymes
Of love and wine and dance, I spread
My mantle by an almond tree,
"And here, beneath the rose," I said,
"I'll hear thy Tuscan melody!"

I heard a tale that was not told
In those ten dreamy days of old,
When Heaven for some divine offence,
Smote Florence with the pestilence;
And in that garden's odorous shade,
The dames of the Decameron,
With each a loyal lover, strayed,
To laugh and sing, at sorest need,
To lie in the lilies in the sun
With glint of plume and silver brede!
And while she whispered in my ear,
The pleasant Arno murmured near,
The dewy, slim chameleons run
Through twenty colors in the sun;

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