Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/On a Sleeping Child

On a Sleeping Child.

Oh! 'tis a touching thing to make one weep; A tender infant with its curtained eye, Breathing as it would neither live nor die, With that unmoving countenance of sleep,As if its silent dream, serene and deep, Had lined its slumbers 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, So sweet a compromise of life and death,'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose, For memory to stain their inward leaf, Tingeing thy dreams with unacquainted grief.