575. Letty’s Globe

WHEN Letty had scarce pass’d her third glad year,

And her young artless words began to flow,

One day we gave the child a colour’d sphere

Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know,

By tint and outline, all its sea and land.

She patted all the world; old empires peep’d

Between her baby fingers; her soft hand

Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leap’d,

And laugh’d and prattled in her world-wide bliss;

But when we turn’d her sweet unlearnèd eye

On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry—

‘Oh! yes, I see it, Letty’s home is there!’

And while she hid all England with a kiss,

Bright over Europe fell her golden hair.