Sleep, little baby of mine,
Night and the darkness are near,
But Jesus looks down
Through the shadows that frown,
And baby has nothing to fear.
Shut, little sleepy blue eyes;
Dear little head, be at rest;
Jesus, like you,
Was a baby once, too,
And slept on his own mother’s breast.
Sleep, little baby of mine,...
From “Bitter-Sweet”
WHAT is the little one thinking about?
Very wonderful things, no doubt;
Unwritten history!
Unfathomed mystery!
Yet he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks,
And chuckles, and crows, and nods, and winks,
As if his head were as full of kinks
And curious riddles as any sphinx!
Warped by colic, and...
Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings,—
Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes;
Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging—
Swinging the nest where her little one lies.
Away out yonder I see a star,—
Silvery star with a tinkling song;
To the soft dew falling I hear it calling—
Calling and tinkling the night along.
...
“Who bears upon his baby brow the round
And top of sovereignty.”
Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 1.
LOOK 1 at me with thy large brown eyes,
Philip, my king!
Round whom the enshadowing purple lies
Of babyhood’s royal dignities.
Lay on my neck thy tiny hand
With Love’s invisible sceptre laden;
I am thine...
Cheeks as soft as July peaches;
Lips whose dewy scarlet teaches
Poppies paleness; round large eyes
Ever great with new surprise;
Minutes filled with shadeless gladness;
Minutes just as brimmed with sadness;
Happy smiles and wailing cries;
Crows, and laughs, and tearful eyes;
Lights and shadows, swifter born
Than on wind-...
Two little feet, so small that both may nestle
In one caressing hand,—
Two tender feet upon the untried border
Of life’s mysterious land.
Dimpled, and soft, and pink as peach-tree blossoms,
In April’s fragrant days,
How can they walk among the briery tangles,
Edging the world’s rough ways?
I ’m in love with you, Baby Louise!
With your silken hair, and your soft blue eyes,
And the dreamy wisdom that in them lies,
And the faint, sweet smile you brought from the skies,—
God’s sunshine, Baby Louise.
When you fold your hands, Baby Louise,
Your hands, like a fairy’s, so tiny and fair,
With a pretty, innocent, saint-like...
The Baby sits in her cradle,
Watching the world go round,
Enrapt in a mystical silence,
Amid all the tumult of sound.
She must be akin to the flowers,
For no one has heard
A whispered word
From this silent baby of ours.
Wondering, she looks at the children,
As they merrily laughing pass,
And smiles...
From “The Hanging of the Crane”
SEATED I see the two again,
But not alone; they entertain
A little angel unaware,
With face as round as is the moon;
A royal guest with flaxen hair,
Who, throned upon his lofty chair,
Drums on the table with his spoon,
Then drops it careless on the floor,
To grasp at things unseen before....
From the Greek by Samuel Rogers
Playing near a Precipice
WHILE on the cliff with calm delight she kneels,
And the blue vales a thousand joys recall,
See, to the last, last verge her infant steals!
O, fly—yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall.—
Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare,
And the fond boy springs back to nestle there.
