The Ballad of Babe Christabel

When Danae-Earth bares all her charms,
And gives the God her perfect flower,
Who, in the sunshine's golden shower,
Leaps warm into her amorous arms!

And all the kindled greenery glows,
While from her emeraldine sea
Spring rises up rejoicingly,
And life hath richest overflows:

When young Maids feel Love stir i' the blood,
And wanton with the kissing leaves
And branches, and the quick sap heaves,
And dances to a ripen'd flood;

Till, blown to its hidden heart with sighs,
Love's red rose burns in cheeks so dear,
And, as sea-jewels upward peer,
Love-thoughts melt through their swimming eyes:

When Beauty walks in bravest dress,
And, fed with April's mellow showers,
The earth laughs out with sweet May-flowers,
That flush for very happiness:

And Puck his web of wonder weaves
O' nights, and nooks of greening gloom
Are rich with violets that bloom
In the cool dark of dewy leaves:

When Rose-buds drink the fiery wine
Of Dawn, with crimson stains i' the mouth,
All thirstily as yearning Youth
From Love's hand drinks the draught divine;

And honey 'd plots are drowsed with Bees:
And Larks rain music by the shower,
While singing, singing hour by hour,
Song like a Spirit sits i' the Trees!

When fainting hearts forget their fears,
And in the poorest Life's salt cup
Some rare wine runs, and Hope builds up
Her rainbow over Memory's tears!

It fell upon a merry May morn,
I' the perfect prime of that sweet time
When daisies whiten, woodbines climb, —
The dear Babe Christabel was born.

All night the Stars bright watches kept,
Like Gods that look a golden calm j
The Silence dropt its precious balm,
And the tired world serenely slept.

The birds were darkling in the nest,
Or bosom'd in voluptuous trees:
On beds of flowers the happy breeze
Had kist its fill and sank to rest.

All night beneath the Cottage eaves,
A lonely light, with tremulous Arc,
Surged back a space the sea of dark,
And glanced among the glimmering leaves.

Without! the quiet heavens above
The nest of life, did lean and brood!
Within! the Mother's tears of blood
Wet the Gethsemane of her love!

And when the Morn with frolic zest,
Lookt through the curtains of the night,
There was a dearer dawn of light,
A tenderer life the Mother's prest!

A bliss to make the brain reel wild!

The Star new-kindled in the dark —
Life that had fluttered like a Lark —
Lay in her bosom a sweet Child!

How she had felt it drawing down
Her nesting heart more close and close —
Her rose-bud ripening to a Rose,
That she should one day see full-blown!

How she had throbb'd with hopes and fears,
And strain'd her inner eyes till dim,
To see the coming glory swim
Through the rich mist of happy tears;

For it, her woman's heart drank up,
And smiled at, Sorrow's darkest dole:
And now Delight's most dainty soul
Was crush t for her in one rich cup!

And then delicious languors crept,
Like nectar, on her pain's hot drouth,
And feeling fingers — kissing mouth —
Being faint with joy, the Mother slept.

Babe Christabel was royally born!

For when the earth was flusht with flowers,
And drencht with beauty in sun-showers,
She came through golden gates of Morn.

No chamber arras-pictured round,
Where sunbeams make a gorgeous gloom,
And touch its glories into bloom,
And footsteps fall withouten sound,
Was her Birth-place that merry May-morn;
No gifts were heapt, no bells were rung,
No healths were drunk, no songs were sung
When dear Babe Christabel was born:

But Nature on the darling smiled,
And with her beauty's blessing crown'd:
Love brooded o'er the hallowed ground,
And there were Angels with the Child!

And May her kisses of love did blow
On amorous airs, that came to her
With gifts of Frankincense and Myrrh,
As came the Magi long ago
To worship Bethlehem's baby-King:

Spring-Birds made welcoming merriment,
And all the Flowers for welcome sent
The secret sweetness of the Spring.

In glancing light and shimmering shade,
With cheeks that toucht and ripelier burn'd,
May-Roses in at the lattice yearn'd
A- tiptoe, and Good Morrow bade.

No purple and fine linen might
Be hoarded up for her sweet sake:

But Mother's love shall clothe and make
The little wearer bravely dight!

Wide worlds of worship are their eyes,
Their loyal hearts are worlds of love,
Who fondly clasp the stranger Dove,
And read its news from Paradise.

Their looks praise God — souls sing for glee:
They think if this old world had toil'd
Through ages to bring forth their child,
It hath a glorious destiny.

O HAPPY Husband! happy Wife!

The rarest blessing Heaven drops down,
The sweetest blossom in Spring's crown
Starts in the furrow of your life!

A towering human height ye win,
Who cry, " Lo my beloved Child!"
And, life on life sublimely piled,
Ye touch the heavens and peer within!

Look how a star of glory swims
Down aching silences of space,
Flushing the Darkness till its face
With beating heart of light o'erbrims!

So brightening came Babe Christabel,
To touch the earth with fresh romance,
And light a Mother's countenance
With looking on her miracle.

With hands so flower-like soft, and fair,
She caught at life, with words as sweet
As first spring violets, and feet
As faery-light as feet of air.

The Father, down in Toil's mirk mine,
Turns to his wealthy world above,
Its radiance, and its home of love;

Holds up his life like sun-struck wine.

The Mother moves with queenlier tread:
Proud swell the globes of ripe delight
Above her heart, so warm and white
A pillow for the baby-head!

Their natures deepen, well-like, clear,
Till God's eternal stars are seen,
For ever shining and serene,
By eyes anointed Beauty's seer.

A sense of glory all things took, —
The red Rose-Heart of Dawn would blow,
And Sundown's sumptuous pictures show
Babe Cherubs wearing their Babe's look!

And round their peerless one they clung,
Like bees about a flower's wine-cup;
New thoughts and feelings blossom'd up,
And hearts for very fulness sung
Of what their budding Babe should grow,
When the Maid crimson'd into Wife,
And crown'd the summit of some life,
Like Phosphor, with morn on its brow!

And they should bless her for a Bride,
Who, like a splendid saint alit
In some heart's seventh heaven, should sit,
As now in theirs, all glorified!

But O! 'twas all too white a brow
To flush with Passion that doth fire
With Hymen's torch its own death-pyre, —
So pure her heart was beating now!

And thus they built their Castles brave
In faery lands of gorgeous cloud;
They never saw a little white shroud,
Nor guess'd how flowers may mask the grave.

She grew a sweet and sinless Child,
In shine and shower, — calm and strife;
A Rainbow on our dark of Life,
From Love's own radiant heaven down-smiled!

In lonely loveliness she grew, —
A shape all music, light, and love,
With startling looks, so eloquent of
The spirit coming into view.

At Childhood she could seldom play
With merry heart, whose flashes rise
Like splendour-winged butterflies
From honey'd hearts of flowers in May:

The fields in blossom flamed and flusht,
The Roses into crimson yearn'd,
With cloudy fire the wall-flowers burn'd,
And blood-red Sunsets bloom'd and blusht, —
And still her cheek was pale as pearl, —
It took no tint of Summer's wealth
Of colour, warmth, and wine of Health: —
Death's hand so whitely pressed the Girl!

No blush grew ripe to sun or kiss
Where violet- veins ran purple light,
So tenderly thro' Parian white,
They toucht you into tenderness.

A spirit look was in her face,
That shadow'd a miraculous range
Of meanings ever rich and strange,
Or lighten'd glory in the place.

Such mystic lore was in her eyes,
And light of other worlds than ours,
She lookt as she had gathered flowers,
With little maids of Paradise.

Her brow — fit home for daintiest dreams —
With such a dawn of light was crown'd,
And reeling ringlets shower'd round,
Like sunny sheaves of golden beams:

And she would talk so weirdly- wild,
And grow upon your wonderings,
As fcho' her stature rose on wings!

And you forgot she was a Child.

Ah! she was one of those who come
With pledged promise not to stay
Long, ere the Angels let them stray
To nestle down in earthly home:

And thro' the windows of her eyes,
We often saw her saintly soul,
Serene, and sad, and beautiful,
Go sorrowing for lost Paradise.

Our Lamb in mystic meadows play'd:
In some celestial sleep she walkt
Her dream of life, and low we talkt,
As of her waking heart-afraid.

In earth she took no lusty root,
Her beauty of promise to disclose,
And round into the Woman-Rose,
And climb into Life's crowning fruit.

She came — like music in the night
Floating as heaven in the brain,
A moment oped, and shut again,
And all is dark where all was light.

She came, — as conies the light of smiles
O'er earth, and every budding thing
Makes quick with beauty — alive with Spring;

Then goeth to Hesperian Isles.

Midnight was trance" d solemnly
Thinking of dawn: Her Star- thoughts burn'd!

The Trees like burden'd Prophets yearn'd,
Rapt in a wind of prophecy:

When, like the Night, the shadow of Woe
On all things laid its hand death-dark,
Our last hope went out as a spark,
And a cry smote heaven like a blow!

We sat and watcht by Life's dark stream,
Our love-lamp blown about the night,
With hearts that lived as lived its light,
And died as died its precious gleam.

In Death's face hers flasht up and smiled,
As smile the young flowers in their prime,
I' the face of their gray murderer Time,
And Death for true love kist our child.

She thought our good-night kiss was given,
And like a lily her life did close;
Angels uncurtain'd that repose,
And the next waking dawn'd in heaven.

With her white hands claspt she sleepeth; heart is
husht, and lips are cold;
Death shrouds up her heaven of beauty, and a weary
way I go,
Like the sheep without a Shepherd on the wintry nor-
land wold,
With the face of Day shut out by blinding snow.

O'er its widow'd nest my heart sits moaning for its
youngling fled
From this world of wail and weeping, gone to join
her starry peers;
And my light of life 's o'ershadow'd where the dear one
lieth dead,
And I'm crying in the dark with many fears.

All last night-tide she seemed near me, like a lost be-
loved Bird,
Beating at the lattice louder than the sobbing wind
and rain;
And I call'd across the night with tender name and
fondling word;
And I yearn'd out thro' the darkness, all in vain.

Heart will plead, " Eyes cannot see her: they are blind
with tears of pain "
And it climbeth up and straineth for dear life to
look and hark
While I call her once again: but there cometh no
refrain,
And it droppeth down, and dieth in the dark.

In this dim world of clouding cares,
We rarely know, till wildered eyes
See white wings lessening up the skies,
The Angels with us unawares.

And thou hast stolen a jewel, Death!

Shall light thy dark up like a Star,
A Beacon kindling from afar
Our light of love, and fainting faith.

Thro' tears it streams perpetually,
And glitters thro' the thickest glooms,
Till the eternal morning comes
To light us o'er the Jasper Sea.

With our best branch in tenderest leaf,
We've strewn the way our Lord doth come;
And, ready for the harvest-home,
His Reapers bind our ripest sheaf.

Our beautiful Bird of light hath fled:
Awhile she sat with folded wings —
Sang round us a few hoverings —
Then straightway into glory sped.

With sense of Motherhood new-found
The white-winged Angels nurture her,
High on the heavenly hills of myrrh,
And all Love's purple glory round.

Thro' Childhood's morning-land, serene
She walkt betwixt us twain, like Love;
While, in a robe of light above,
Her better Angel walkt unseen,
Till Life's highway broke bleak and wild;
Then, lest her starry garments trail
In mire, heart bleed, and courage fail,
The Angel's arms caught up the child.

Her wave of life hath backward roll'd
To the great ocean; on whose shore
We wander up and down, to store
Some treasures of the times of old:

And aye we seek and hunger on
For precious pearls and relics rare,
Strewn on the sands for us to wear
At heart, for love of her that's gone.

O weep no more! there yet is balm
In Gilead! Love doth ever shed
Rich healing where it nestles, — spread
O'er desert pillows, some green Palm!

Strange glory streams thro' Life's wild rents,
And thro' the open door of Death
We see the heaven that beckoneth
To the beloved going hence.

God's ichor fills the hearts that bleed;

The best fruit loads the broken bough;

And in the wounds our sufferings plough,
Immortal Love sows sovereign seed.