What is most like her, our baby sweet,
Strayed from the skies on yester-even,
So newly come that her dimpled feet
Still are missed at the gate of Heaven,
Where the angels kissed them and bade them go.
What is most like her? Don't you know?

The bud of a rose,—of a moss-rose, fair,
Flushed and dainty, a folded flower,
The blossom a woman is fain to wear
Over the heart. May sun and shower
Brim her cup to the overflow
With dewy perfume, if this be so!

Or call her rather a nestling dove
That fluttered down through the moonlight amber,
To be brooded under the wings of love
Here in a hushed and happy chamber.
May never a stain of our earth below
Dim her plumage, if this be so!

I liken her unto a pearl,—a pearl
From seas of trouble. But whist, my numbers!
What strains are these for our baby-girl,
Shut like a star in a mist of slumbers?
They vex her dreams with their tuneless flow.
She heard the angels a night ago.