With tender care of straining arms,
She kept it circled from all harms,
With face turned from the sun;
For in that perfect tiny heart,
The mother, sister, nurse, had part,
Her womanhood begun.
At length they reach an ugly ditch,
The slippery sloping bank of which
Flowers and long grasses line;
Some ragged-robins baby spied,
And spread his little arms out wide,
As he had found a mine.
What baby wants, that baby has:
A law unalterable as—
The poor shall serve the rich;
She kneeleth down with eager eyes,
And, reaching far out for the prize,
Topples into the ditch.
And slanting down the bank she rolled,
But in her little bosom's fold
She clasps the baby tight;
And in the ditch's muddy flow,
No safety sought by letting go,
At length she stands upright.
Alas! her little feet are wet;
Her new shoes! how can she forget?
And yet she does not cry.
Her scanty frock of dingy blue,
Her petticoat wet through and through!
But baby is quite dry.
And baby laughs, and baby crows;
And baby being right, she knows
That nothing can be wrong;
And so with troubled heart, yet stout,
She plans how ever to get out,
With meditations long.
The bank is higher than her head,
And slippery too, as I have said;
And what to do with baby?
For even the monkey, when he goes,
Needs both his fingers and his toes.—
She is perplexed as may be.
But all her puzzling was no good,
Though staring up the bank she stood,
Which, as she sunk, grew higher;
Until, invaded with dismay,
Lest baby's patience should give way,
She frees her from the mire.
And up and down the ditch, not glad,
But patient, she did promenade;
Splash! splash! went her poor feet.
And baby thought it rare good fun,
And did not want it to be done;
And the ditch flowers were sweet.
But, oh! the world that she had left,
The meads from her so lately reft,
An infant Proserpine,
Lay like a fabled land above,
A paradise of sunny love,
In warmth and light divine.