Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/The Sad Story of a Little Girl

by Sarah Piatt

THE SAD STORY OF A LITTLE GIRL.

Oh, never mind her eyes and hair,
 (Though they were dark and it was gold.)
That she was sweet is all I care
 To tell you—till the rest is told.
 ———"But is the story old?"

Hush. She was sweet———Why do I cry?
 Because—her mother loved her so.
I told you that she did not die;
 But she is gone. "Where did she go?
 Ah me,—I do not know.

"How old was she when she was sweet?"
 Why, one year old, or two, or three.
Here is her shoe—what little feet!
 And yet they walked away, you see.
 (I must not say, from me.)

"Did Gypsies take her?" Surely, no.
 But—something took her; she is lost:
No track of hers in dew or snow,
 No heaps of wild buds backward tossed,
 To show what paths she crossed.

"Did Fairies take her?" It may be.
 For Fairies sometimes, I have read,
Will climb the moonshine, secretly,
 To steal a baby from its bed,
 And leave an imp instead.

This Changeling, German tales declare,
 Makes trouble in the house full soon:
Cries at the tangles in its hair,
 Beats the piano out of tune,
 And—wants to sleep till noon.

And, while it keeps the lost one's face,
 It grows less lovely, year by year———
Yes, in that pretty baby's place
 There was a Changeling left, I fear.
 . . . My little maid, do you hear?