  ’Twas bought in Bruges, the shop was poor, One read “Au BÉbÉ” flourished o’er The ancient lintel; to that door No English guinea Had ever come nor travelled gold Gladdened her gaze, that woman old, Who tottered from the gloom and sold The Belgian “pinny.” I mind me choosing in the place A cap with frills of little lace; “That too,” I said, “shall come to grace My Small and Sweet.” Prim in her pinafore arrayed I pictured Betsey while I strayed Where, all the time, the proud bells played Above the street. Now, Betsey, on the roguish back That stalks around the sunny stack The turkey’s truculence or the track Of stable cats The Belgian “pinny” flaunts its hue, Still the same stripe of white and blue As when ’twas dyed, no doubt for you, In Flemish vats. Still of its old lost life it tells And alien provenance, there are spells And glamour of the Town of Bells About it shed; And when my Belgian Betsey climbs My knee I’ve heard a hundred times The clash and ripple of the chimes Around her head. As though the child herself did play Without some white estaminet Shuttered and silent where, all day In sun and shower, Two little lions with stone grins Hold ’scutcheons under paws and chins And their divine appellant dins The honoured hour. |
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