BABY’S
DREAMS.
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What
doth the moon so lily white,
Busily weave this Summer night?
Silver ropes and diamond strands
For Baby’s pink and dimpl’d hands;
Cords for her rosy palms to hold,
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While
she floats, she flies, |
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To
Dream Land set with its shores of gold,
And its
buds like stars shaken out of the skies;
Where the trees have tongues and the flowers have
lips
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To
coax, to kiss, |
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The
velvet cheek of the Babe who slips
Thro’ the Dream gate up to a land like this.
What is the mild sea whisp’ring clear
In the rosy shell of Baby’s ear ?
See! she laughs in her dimpl’d sleep—
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What
does she hear from the shining deep? |
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—–
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“Thy
father comes a-sailing, a-sailing, a-sailing,
Safely comes a-sailing from islands fair and far.
O Baby, bid thy mother cease her tears and bitter
wailing
The sailor’s wife’s his only port, his
babe his beacon star!”
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| [Page
104] |
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Softly
the Wind doth blow,
What say its murmurs low?
What doth it bring
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the wide soft plume of its dewy wing? |
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“Only
scented blisses |
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Of
innocent, sweet kisses,
For such cheeks as
this is,
Of
Baby in her nest.
From all the dreaming flowers,
A-nodding in their bowers;
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Or
bright on leafy towers,
Where the fairy monarchs
rest.”
“But chiefly I bring,
On my fresh sweet
mouth,
Her father’s kiss,
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As
he sails out of the south. |
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He
hitherward blew it at break of day,
I lay it, Babe, on
thy tender lip;
I’ll steal another and hie away,
And kiss it to him
on his wave-rock’d ship.”
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I
saw a fairy twine
Of star-white Jessamine;
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dainty seat shaped like an airy swing; |
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With
two round yellow stars,
Against the misty bars
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Of
Night; she nailed it high
In the pansy-purple sky,
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| With
four taps of her little rainbow wing. |
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To
and fro
That swing I’ll
blow. [Page
105]
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The
baby moon in the amethyst sky
Will laugh at us as we float and fly,
And stretch her silver arms and try
To catch the earth-babe swinging by. [Page
106]
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