My child moans sadly in my arms, The winds they will not let it sleep: Ah, little knows the hapless babe What makes its wretched mother weep! Now lie thee still, my infant dear, And never will he shelter thee. Oh, that I were but in my grave, THE LULLABY OF A FEMALE CONVICT TO SLEEP, baby mine,* enkerchieft on my bosom, Thy cries they pierce again my bleeding breast; Sleep, baby mine, not long thou'lt have a mother To lull thee fondly in her arms to rest. Baby, why dost thou keep this sad complaining? Long from mine eyes have kindly slumbers fled; Hush, hush, my babe, the night is quickly waning, And I would fain compose my aching head. Sir Philip Sidney has a poem, beginning" Sleep, baby mine." Poor wayward wretch! and who will heed thy weeping, When soon an outcast on the world thou'lt be? Who then will soothe thee, when thy mother's sleeping In her low grave of shame and infamy? Sleep, baby mine-To-morrow I must leave thee, And I would snatch an interval of rest: Sleep these last moments, ere the laws bereave thee, For never more thou'lt press a mother's breast. THE SAVOYARD'S RETURN. OH! yonder is the well known spot, Where I shall rest, no more to roam! O'er many a distant foreign land; Of distant climes the false report It bade me rove-my sole support Now safe return'd, with wandering tired, A PASTORAL SONG. COME, Anna! come, the morning dawns, Faint streaks of radiance tinge the skies; Come, let us seek the dewy lawns, And watch the early lark arise; While nature, clad in vesture gay, Hails the loved return of day. Our flocks, that nip the scanty blade Upon the moor, shall seek the vale; And watch the silver clouds above, Come, Anna! come, and bring thy lute, And then at eve, when silence reigns, MELODY. YES, once more that dying strain, While the Virtues thus enweave Thus when life hath stolen away, SONG. BY WALLER. A lady of Cambridge lent Waller's Poems to the Author, and when he returned them to her, she discovered an additional stanza written by him at the bottom of the song here copied. Go, lovely rose! Tell her, that wastes her time on me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that's young, That hadst thou sprung In deserts, where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. |