| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | III. To a Sleeping Child (I.) | | By Thomas Hood (1799–1845) |
| | | O, ’T IS a touching thing to make one weep,— | |
| A tender infant with its curtained eye, | |
| Breathing as it would neither live nor die, | |
| With that unchanging countenance of sleep! | |
| As if its silent dream, serene and deep, | 5 |
| Had lined its slumber 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, | 10 |
| So sweet a compromise of life and death, | |
| ’T is pity those fair buds should e’er unclose | |
| For memory to stain their inward leaf, | |
| Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief. | | | | |
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