THE WATER BABIES
three feet for her one, and Tom asked them the way to Shiny Wall; but they did not know. Then he tried to find out how she moved, and at last he saw her screw, and was so delighted with it that he played under her quarter all day, till he nearly had his nose knocked off by the fans, and thought it time to move. Then he watched the sailors upon deck, and the ladies, with their bonnets and parasols; but none of them could see him, because their eyes were not opened—as, indeed, most people's eyes are not.
At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a very pretty lady, in deep black widows' weeds, and in her arms a baby. She leaned over the quarter-gallery, and looked back and back toward England far away, and as she looked she sang—
I.
"Soft soft wind from out the sweet south sliding,
Waft thy silver cloud-webs athwart the summer sea;
Thin thin threads of mist on dewy fingers twining
Weave a veil of dappled gauze to shade my babe and me.
II.
"Deep deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding,
Pour Thyself abroad, O Lord, on earth and air and sea;
Worn weary hearts within Thy holy temple hiding,
Shield from sorrow, sin, and shame my helpless babe and me."
Her voice was so soft and low and the music of the air so sweet, that Tom could have listened to it
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