Hope Sisson (To Baby Hope)

O, this world’s a big affair
    Baby Hope!
This on which your little pair
    Of seekers ope.
Eyes of wonder, asking: “Where
    Have I come to anyhow?
    And what Angel is this now,
Who bends over me and sings
Tenderly, yet has no wings,
    Like the ones I used to know?”

    Ah, I see you know the sort,
        Baby dear!
    By that smile so sweet and short,
        When you see her!
    That you mean to “Hold the Fort,”
        Since you’r in it, well I wist,
        By your little doubled fist
    Squared away to left and right,
    At the big world, for a fight,
        Wee-bit darling pugilist!

        Never mind the giants now, 
            Baby Hope;
        All the biggest of them bow, 
            (In a trope)
        To your Ladyship, and vow
            Loyal service, at your need,
            One to clothe, and one to feed,
        Ten to kiss you, all to love,
        And then over and above,
            One for coachman and for steed!

We shall watch you every day,
    Baby dear,
Just to know what cherubs stay
    With you here,
Making all your modelled clay
    To grow sweeter, as a rose
    From a pink-tipt rose-bud grows;
And I guess we’ll catch them soon,
Slipping in each tiny boon,
    From your silky top to toes!

    Life has myriad things to show,
        Baby Hope;
    But you’ll grow to them, I trow,
        And not mope!
    Aye, and teach us as you grow!
        We shall know what first you speak,
        Though you coo in Dutch or Greek,
    For Love’s universal tongue,
    Be its meaning said or sung,
        Or but looked, the loving know!

‘Tis our love, expelling fear,
    Calls you “Hope;”
All the bright stars in your clear
    Horoscope
Shine with promise to our sphere,
    That the over-brooding Dove –
    Love that gave will guard our love,
So that when your feet are wings,
And your tongue’s a bird that sings,
    Earth shall seem as Heaven above!