C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

“Good-Night, Babbette”

By Henry Austin Dobson (1840–1921)

Day of my life! Where can she get?

BABETTE! I say! BABETTE!—BABETTE!

Coming, M’sieu’! If M’sieu’ speaks

So loud, he won’t be well for weeks!

Where have you been?

Why, M’sieu’ knows:—

April!… Ville-d’ Avray!… Ma’m’selle ROSE!

Ah! I am old,—and I forget.

Was the place growing green, BABETTE?

But of a greenness!—Yes, M’sieu’!

And then the sky so blue!—so blue!

And when I dropped my immortelle,

How the birds sang!

This poor Ma’m’selle!

You’re a good girl, BABETTE, but she,—

She was an angel, verily.

Sometimes I think I see her yet

Stand smiling by the cabinet;

And once, I know, she peeped and laughed

Betwixt the curtains….
Where’s the draught?

Now I shall sleep, I think, BABETTE;—

Sing me your Norman chansonnette.

“Once at the Angelus

(Ere I was dead),

Angels all glorious

Came to my bed;—

Angels in blue and white,

Crowned on the head.”

“She was an Angel” … “Once she laughed” …

What! was I dreaming?
Where’s the draught?

The draught, M’sieu’?

How I forget!

I am so old! But sing, BABETTE!

“One was the Friend I left

Stark in the Snow;

One was the Wife that died

Long,—long ago;

One was the Love I lost—

How could she know?”

Ah PAUL!… old PAUL!… EULALIE, too!

And ROSE…. And O! “the sky so blue!”

“One had my Mother’s eyes,

Wistful and mild;

One had my Father’s face;

One was a Child:

All of them bent to me,—

Bent down and smiled!”
[He is asleep!]

How I forget!

I am so old!… Good-night, BABETTE.

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