693. 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.	5
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	10
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.