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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
LET HER SLEEP!, by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS Poet's Biography
First Line: Where the golden corn is rustling and the / forest's shadow ceases
Last Line: Nor think life's hand will fail to do its duty -- save in seeming.
Subject(s): Children; Sleep; Childhood
First Line: Where the golden corn is rustling and the / forest's shadow ceases
Last Line: Nor think life's hand will fail to do its duty -- save in seeming.
Subject(s): Children; Sleep; Childhood
WHERE the golden corn is rustling and the forest's shadow ceases,
Where bright children of the summer barter kisses with the breezes,
Where the chaste eyes of the timid roe are through the leafage gazing, --
By the roadside sleeps a little girl in the fierce noon- tide's blazing.
Her golden curls are glittering like the sunbeams on them streaming,
Her shoulders bare through many a rent in ragged gown are gleaming;
With tender touch the grass-blades green her sun- burned wee feet cover,
Gay butterflies, like brilliant gems, above them flit and hover.
Save the bees' hum, sound there is none; but the elfin whispers wooing,
From the green dusk of the dense woods comes the hidden dove's faint cooing;
Their silken locks from off their brows the ears of corn are sweeping,
All things breathe the happiness and peace: the child smiles e'en while
sleeping.
Her dreams are like the quiet scene by fair Nature's hand created,
By no foe as yet 'tis menaced, by no tempest devastated;
Happy is she as the flowers which no thought take for the morrow,
Soaring upward on light bird-wings, all untouched by care or sorrow.
Playmates of the radiant angels sees she in each child of mortal,
From the palace to the hovel to one family belong all.
Days of childhood, with thy dreams lead all the little lambkins tender,
Whether clad in rags or silk, in the same fairy mead to wander.
Long before the little maid I stood and deeply meditated,
Gazing at the lovely vision till my soul was fully sated;
With gesture stern a boy waved back, the noisy lad's plan thwarting.
For his own sport to see the child at his touch from slumber starting.
Gayly singing, roved he onward, while with footsteps light I glided
'Neath the pines, amid whose branches solemn murmurs ne'er subsided.
Grant to youth its peaceful slumber, leave the fair child to her dreaming,
Nor think Life's hand will fail to do its duty -- save in seeming.
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
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THE THREE CHILDREN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN
CHILDREN SELECTING BOOKS IN A LIBRARY by RANDALL JARRELL
COME TO THE STONE ... by RANDALL JARRELL
THE LOST WORLD by RANDALL JARRELL
A SICK CHILD by RANDALL JARRELL
CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS
ON THE DEATH OF FRIENDS IN CHILDHOOD by DONALD JUSTICE
THE POET AT SEVEN by DONALD JUSTICE