New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1856-05-19
Babe BELL.
Poem of Little Life that ,Uas but three Aprils long.
BY It. 3. ALDRICH.

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Have you not heard the Poet tell
How came the dainty babie Bell
In this world of ours?
The gates of Heaven were left ajar:
With folded hands and dreamy eyes
She wandered out of Paradise!
She saw this planet like star,
Hung in the depths of purple even
Its bridges running to and fro,
Der which the white-winged Seraphs go,
Bearing the holy Dead to Heaven!
She touched bridge of howers-those feet,
So light they did not bend the bells
Of the celestial asphodels!
They fell like dew upon the flowers!
And all the air grew strongly sweet!
And thus came dainty babe Bell
Into this world of ours!
She came and brought delicious May!
The swallows built beneath the caves;
Like sunbeams in and out the leaves,
The robins went, the liye-long day;
The lily swung its noiseless bell,
And DER the porch the trembling vine
Seemed bursting with its veins Of wine:
O, earth was full of pleasant smell,
When came the dainty babie Bell
Into this world of ours
O, babe, dainty babe Bell
How fair she grew from day to day!
What woman nature filled her eyes,
What poetry within them lay!
Those deep and tender twilight eyes,
So full of meaning pure, and bright
As if she yet stood in the light
Of those oped gates of Paradise!
And we loved babie more and more;
0 never in our hearts before
Such holy love was born;
We felt we had link between
This real world and that unseen
The land of deathless morn /.
And for the love Of those dear eyes,
For love of her whom God led forth
The mothers being ceased on earth
When babe came from Paradise!
For love of him who smote our lives,
And woke The chords of joy and pain,
We said, sweet Christ our hearts bent down
Like yiolets after rain!
And now the orchards which were once
All white and rosy in their bloom
Filling the crystal heart of air
With gentle pulses OF perfume,
We're thick with yellow juicy fruit;
The plums were globes of honey rare,
And soft-cheeked peaches blushed and fell.
The grapes were purpling in the grange,
And time wrought just as rich change
In little babe bell
Her petit form more perfect grew,
And in her features we could trace.
In softened curves her mothers face:
Her angel nature ripened, too.
We thought her lovely when she came,
But she was holy, sanity now.
Around her pale and lofty brow
We thought We saw ring of fame!
Sometimes she said a few strange words
Whose meaning lay beyond our reach
Gods hand had taken away the seal
Which held the portals of her speech,
She never was a child to us;
We never held her beings key!
We could not teach her holy things;
She was Christ's self in purity!
It came upon us by degrees
We saw its shadow ere it fell.
The knowledge that our God sent
His messenger for babie Bell
We shuddered unlanguaged pain,
And all our thoughts ran into tears
And all our hopes were changed to fears
The sunshine into dismal rain
Aloud we cried in our belief:
go, smite us gently, gently, God
Teach us to bend and kiss the rod,
And perfect grow thro' grief"
All, how we loved her, God can tell
Her little heart Ceased in ours
They're broken casketsc-babie Bell!
At last he came, the messenger,
The messenger from unseen lands:
And what did dainty babe Bell?
She only crossed her little hands!
She only looked meek and fair
We parted back her slken hair;
We laid some buds upon her brow
Deaths bride arrayed in flowers!
And thus went babie Bell
Out of this world Of ours