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Poems of childhood cover

Poems of childhood

Chapter 47: HUSHABY, SWEET MY OWN

By Eugene Field

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Children & Young Adult Reading Poetry

About This Book

A collection of short lyrical poems written for and about children, blending playful nonsense, gentle lullabies, and nostalgic reminiscence. Many pieces evoke bedtime and nursery scenes, give voice to toys and animals, or imagine voyages and fairylike adventures, mixing humor with a tender melancholy. Several poems adapt or echo folk-song material, while others are brief narrative or character sketches that vary in meter and mood. Overall the verses create an intimate domestic atmosphere, inviting readers into childlike wonder through simple rhythms, vivid small-scale imagery, and affectionate observation.

HUSHABY, SWEET MY OWN

Fair is the castle up on the hill—

Hushaby, sweet my own!

The night is fair, and the waves are still,

And the wind is singing to you and to me

In this lowly home beside the sea—

Hushaby, sweet my own!

On yonder hill is store of wealth—

Hushaby, sweet my own!

And revellers drink to a little one’s health;

But you and I bide night and day

For the other love that has sailed away—

Hushaby, sweet my own!

See not, dear eyes, the forms that creep

Ghostlike, O my own!

Out of the mists of the murmuring deep;

Oh, see them not and make no cry

Till the angels of death have passed us by—

Hushaby, sweet my own!

Ah, little they reck of you and me—

Hushaby, sweet my own!

In our lonely home beside the sea;

They seek the castle up on the hill,

And there they will do their ghostly will—

Hushaby, O my own!

Here by the sea a mother croons

“Hushaby, sweet my own!”

In yonder castle a mother swoons

While the angels go down to the misty deep

Bearing a little one fast asleep—

Hushaby, sweet my own!