To a Sleeping Child

II.

Thine eyelids slept so beauteously, I deem'd

No eyes could wake so beautiful as they:

Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay,

I loved their peacefulness, nor ever dream'd

Of dimples:—for those parted lips so seem'd,

I never thought a smile could sweetlier play,

Nor that so graceful life could chase away

Thy graceful death,—till those blue eyes upbeam'd.

Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drown'd

And roses bloom more rosily for joy,

And odorous silence ripens into sound,

And fingers move to sound.—All-beauteous boy!

How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove,

If not more lovely thou art more like Love!