Sarah Coleridge (1802–1850)

(From Chapter XVI.)

SLEEP, my babe, hear not the rippling wave,

Nor feel the breeze that round thee lingering stray,

To drink thy balmy breath,

And sigh one long farewell.

Soon shall it mourn above thy wat’ry bed,

And whisper to me, on the wave-beat shore,

Deep murm’ring in reproach,

Thy sad untimely fate.

Ere those dear eyes had opened on the light,

In vain to plead, thy coming life was sold,

O! wakened but to sleep,

Whence it can wake no more!

A thousand and a thousand silken leaves

The tufted beech unfolds in early spring,

All clad in tenderest green,

All of the self-same shape:

A thousand infant faces, soft and sweet,

Each year sends forth, yet every mother views

Her last not least beloved

Like its dear self alone.

No musing mind hath ever yet foreshaped

The face to-morrow’s sun shall first reveal,

No heart hath e’er conceived

What love that face will bring.

O sleep, my babe, nor heed how mourns the gale

To part with thy soft locks and fragrant breath,

As when it deeply sighs

O’er autumn’s latest bloom.