 | The complete poetical works of Thomas Hood |  |
ON A SLEEPING CHILD
I
O, '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 unmoving countenance of sleep!
403
Had lined its slumbers 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.
II
Thine eyelids slept so beauteously, I deem'dNo eyes would wake more beautiful than they;
Thy glossy cheeks so unimpassion'd lay,
I loved their peacefulness, and never dream'd
Of dimples; for thy parted lips so seem'd
I did not think a smile could sweetlier play,
Nor that so graceful life could charm 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 mirth,—All-beauteous boy!
How dost thou waken into smiles, and prove,
If not more lovely, thou art more like Love!
| The complete poetical works of Thomas Hood | |