The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-BabyKingsley, Charles
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The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby
Kingsley, Charles
Chimney sweeps -- Juvenile fiction; Fairy tales -- England
And she shook hands with him, and bade him good-bye. Tom longed very
much again to kiss her; but he thought it would not be respectful,
considering she was a lady born; so he promised not to forget her: but
his little whirl-about of a head was so full of the notion of going out
to see the world, that it forgot her in five minutes: however, though
his head forgot her, I am glad to say his heart did not.
So he asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds in the air, but
none of them knew the way to Shiny Wall. For why? He was still too far
down south.
Then he met a ship, far larger than he had ever seen--a gallant
ocean-steamer, with a long cloud of smoke trailing behind; and he
wondered how she went on without sails, and swam up to her to see. A
school of dolphins were running races round and round her, going 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 widow's 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 all day. But as she held the baby over the
gallery rail, to show it the dolphins leaping and the water gurgling in
the ship's wake, lo! and behold, the baby saw Tom.
He was quite sure of that; for when their eyes met, the baby smiled and
held out his hands; and Tom smiled and held out his hands too; and the
baby kicked and leaped, as if it wanted to jump overboard to him.
"What do you see, my darling?" said the lady; and her eyes followed the
baby's till she too caught sight of Tom, swimming about among the
foam-beads below.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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