A Little Child's Monument/Sleep

by Roden Noel

 

Sleep.

Airily the leaves are playing
In blue summer light,
Fugitive soft shadow laying
Lovingly o'er marble white,
Where he lies asleep.

Lilies of the valley bending
Lowly bells amid the green;
Sweet moss roses meekly lending
Their soft beauty to the scene
Of his quiet sleep.

All around him heather glowing
Purple in the sun;
Sound of bees, and bird o'erflowing
Lull my lost, my little one,
Lying there asleep.

Harsher sight or sound be banished,
For my child is gone to rest;
These are telling of my vanished
In the language of the blest,
Wake him not from sleep!