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

A Cradle Song

From ‘Songs of Experience’

SLEEP, sleep, beauty bright,

Dreaming in the joys of night;

Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep

Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face

Soft desires I can trace,

Secret joys and secret smiles,

Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel,

Smiles as of the morning steal

O’er thy cheek and o’er thy breast,

Where thy little heart doth rest.

Oh, the cunning wiles that creep

In thy little heart asleep!

When thy little heart shall wake,

Then the dreadful light shall break.