Sleep, little one! The Twilight folds her gloom
Full tenderly about the drowsy Day,
And all his tinselled hours of light and bloom
Like toys are laid away.
Sleep! sleep! The noon-sky’s airy cloud of white
Has deepened wide o’er all the azure plain;
And, trailing through the leaves, the skirts of Night
Are wet with dews as rain.
But rest thou sweetly, smiling in thy dreams,
With round fists tossed like roses o’er thy head,
And thy tranc’d lips and eyelids kissed with gleams
Of rapture perfected.