[Editor: This poem by William Blocksidge (also known as William Baylebridge) was published in Songs o’ the South (1908).]
Lullaby
Slumber, Belovèd! No foe need you fear,
For while you are sleeping my spirit is near,
Guarding you ever; then sweetly dream on;
Leaving you never till night-shades are gone.
Slumber, Belovèd! The soft breezes sing
Sweet songs in the creepers that lovingly cling
So close to the casement, as if they would know
How slumbers my Love while the night-watches go
Slumber, Belovèd! for there, at your side,
Good angels are watching, your dreaming to guide:
How glad are the visions where angels attend!
So slumber, my darling, for night soon must end.
Slumber, Belovèd! for soon will the morn
With rose-tinted streamers your chamber adorn.
Then sleep till the shadows are lost in the light:
Slumber, my darling, for soon goes the night.
Source:
William Blocksidge, Songs o’ the South, London: Watts, 1908, p. 15
Editor’s notes:
casement = a window which opens like a door (being attached to a window frame by vertical hinges at the side), can be a single window or a pair of windows which share a common window frame (in a literary sense, can refer to any window in general)
chamber = bed chamber, bedroom
morn = morning
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