I <br /> <br />Oh, 'tis a touching thing, to make one weep,— <br />A tender infant with its curtain'd eye, <br />Breathing as it would neither live nor die <br />With that unchanging countenance of sleep! <br />As if its silent dream, serene and deep, <br />Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky <br />So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie <br />With no more life than roses—just to keep <br />The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath. <br />O blossom boy! so calm is thy repose. <br />So sweet a compromise of life and death, <br />'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose <br />For memory to stain their inward leaf, <br />Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />II <br /> <br />Thine eyelids slept so beauteously, I deem'd <br />No eyes could wake so beautiful as they: <br />Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay, <br />I loved their peacefulness, nor ever dream'd <br />Of dimples:—for those parted lips so seem'd, <br />I never thought a smile could sweetlier play, <br />Nor that so graceful life could chase away <br />Thy graceful death,—till those blue eyes upbeam'd. <br />Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drown'd <br />And roses bloom more rosily for joy, <br />And odorous silence ripens into sound, <br />And fingers move to sound.—All-beauteous boy! <br />How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove, <br />If not more lovely thou art more like Love!<br /><br />Thomas Hood<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-a-sleeping-child/
