Bread and Circuses

Chapter 56: LULLABY FOR A LITTLE GIRL

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About This Book

A lyrical collection of short poems ranges from quiet country scenes and childhood memories to urban sketches and religious reflections. The poet renders streams, gardens, market sellers, and domestic interiors in close sensory detail while pairing everyday observation with moral and spiritual meditation. Animal vignettes and playful pieces for children sit alongside elegies, prayers, and ironic portraits of modern life, producing tones of humour, tenderness, and solemnity. Varied forms and concise portraits move between pastoral lanes, London streets, and intimate household moments while attending to time, sorrow, and faith.

LULLABY FOR A LITTLE GIRL

Now candle-flames disperse the rout Of shadows and their giant wars; And though the roof of night without Be spanned with dusk and set with stars, ’Tis lullaby, The elm-tops cry, And lullaby, the leaves that pass In stealth across the window-glass.

The comb shall sleek your drooping head And through the darling tangles go And all your night attire is spread Before the fire to face the glow, And lullaby, The cinders sigh, For ev’ry rosy palace gone, Fall’n in their dwarfish Ilion.

Now rest, your prayers said aright And timely supped your milky bowl, Your little body all as white And sweet as your unsoilèd soul; And lullaby, Her melody, Who from the quilted bedside goes, A-tiptoe, when your eye-lids close.