Poems (Van Rensselaer)/Cradle Song

by Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer

For works with similar titles, see Cradle Song.

CRADLE SONG

  How do we know
  How the seasons go?
By white of the blossoms and white of the snow,
  By yellow of wheat
  And the hurrying beat
On yellowing boughs of the rain-storm's feet.

  What is so bright
  In the midmost night?
The moon with her banner of glittering light;
  And when she goes by,
  In the dark-blue sky,
A million and one, the stars climb high:

  Lion and Bear,
  The Crown and the Chair,
The Hunter and Dog, the Cross and the Square;
  The Dragon outspread,
  Arcturus so red,
And the eye that burns hot in the Bull's great head.

  What of the rose
  When the night wind blows?
She dreams little poems that nobody knows,
  And into the ear
  Of the lily-bud near
She sings little melodies no one can hear.

  Slumber, my love,
  To the coo of the dove
And the croon of the breeze in the branches above;
  Sleep till the sun
  His sleeping has done,
And the stars run away from him one after one.

  Long not to be
  With the birds in the tree
To swing in the wind—it is safer with me;
  Slumber is best
  In the nursery nest,
And my arms are as warm as the mother-bird's breast.