MY BABES IN THE WOOD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2480, 10 May 1909, Page 3

MY BABES IN THE WOOD.

I know a story, fairer, dimmer, sadder, Than any story painted in your books. You are so glad ? I will not make you gladder: Yet listen, with your pretty restless looks

“Isit a fairy story ?’’ Well, half fairy— At least it dates far back as fairies do, And seems to me as beautiful and airy; Yet half, perhaps the fairy half, is. true.

You had a baby sister and a brother, Two very dainty people, rosy while, Sweeter than all things else except each other! Older yet younger—gone from human sight!

And I, who loved them, and shall love them ever. And think with yearning tears how each light hand' Crept toward bright bloom and berries—l shall never Know how I lost them. Do you understand? Poor slightly golden heads 11 think I missed them First in some dreamy, piteous, doubtful way; But when and where with lingering lips I kissed them, My gradual parting, I can never say. * Sometimes I fancy that they may have perished In shadowy quiet of wet rocks and moss, Near paths whose very pebbles I have cherished, For their small sakes, since my most bitter loss.

[ fancy, too, that they were softly covered By robins, out of apple flowers they knew, Whose nursing wings in far home sunshine hovered, Before the timid world had dropped the dew.

Their names were—what yours are. At this you wonder, Their pictures are—your own, as you have seen; &nd my bird-buried darlings, hidden under Lost leaves—why, it is your dead selves 1 mean!