To A Sleeping Child

Oh, 'tis a touching thing, to make one weep,— A tender infant with its curtain'd eye,

Breathing as it would neither live nor die With that unchanging countenance of sleep!

As if its silent dream, serene and deep,

Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie With no more life than roses—just to keep The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath.

O blossom boy! so calm is thy repose.

So sweet a compromise of life and death, 'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose For memory to stain their inward leaf,

Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief.

Thine eyelids slept so beauteously,

I deem'd No eyes could wake so beautiful as they:

Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay,

I loved their peacefulness, nor ever dream'd Of dimples:—for those parted lips so seem'd,

I never thought a smile could sweetlier play,

Nor that so graceful life could chase away Thy graceful death,—till those blue eyes upbeam'd.

Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drown'd And roses bloom more rosily for joy,

And odorous silence ripens into sound,

And fingers move to sound.—All-beauteous boy!

How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove,

If not more lovely thou art more like Love!