| J. C. Squire, ed. A Book of Women’s Verse. 1921. | | | | O Sleep, my Babe | | By Sara Coleridge (1802–1852) |
| | | O SLEEP, my babe, hear not the rippling wave, | |
| Nor feel the breeze that round thee ling’ring strays | |
| To drink thy balmy breath, | |
| And sigh one long farewell. | |
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| Soon shall it mourn above thy wat’ry bed, | 5 |
| And whisper to me, on the wave-beat shore, | |
| Deep murm’ring in reproach, | |
| Thy sad untimely fate. | |
| |
| Ere those dear eyes had open’d to the light, | |
| In vain to plead, thy coming life was sold, | 10 |
| O waken’d but to sleep, | |
| Whence it can wake no more! | |
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| A thousand and a thousand silken leaves | |
| The tufted beech unfolds in early spring, | |
| All clad in tenderest green, | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
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| Its 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. | |
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| O sleep, my babe, nor heed how mourns the gale | 25 |
| To part with thy soft locks and fragrant breath, | |
| As when it deeply sighs | |
| O’er autumn’s latest bloom. | | | | |
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