The Bab Ballads, with Which Are Included Songs of a Savoyard

Part 1 — SPECULATION

Reading edition

Illustration from The Bab Ballads, with Which Are Included Songs of a Savoyard

Comes a train of little ladies From scholastic trammels free, Each a little bit afraid is, Wondering what the world can be! Is it but a world of trouble— Sadness set to song? Is its beauty but a bubble Bound to break ere long? Are its palaces and pleasures Fantasies that fade? And the glory of its treasures Shadow of a shade? Schoolgirls we, eighteen and under, From scholastic trammels free, And we wonder—how we wonder!— What on earth the world can be!