Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Lullaby of the Outcast

Ruth Tenney

CHILD, born of my weeping, sleep.

They have beaten me, and cast me out of the village—

Sleep, my own.

Your father was a merchant who passed through the fields—

His sleeves were of silk and his hair shone in the dusk.

Sleep, my son—may you never know pain.

The blossoming wheat shelters us;

Far off, the village dogs bay to the night—

Sleep, my own.

At dawn we will set out over the plain

Toward the city of merciful strangers.

There I will bow down beside the great gate,

Begging of all who enter in;

Till they, seeing you in my arms,

Little one, little prince clothed in rags,

Must pity us with a great pity and fling us alms.

Sleep on my heart, little son—

May you never know pain.