Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LAST LULLABY, by HENRY BATAILLE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LAST LULLABY, by                    
First Line: Sing sweetly, killore
Last Line: With a black magpie on a bough.
Subject(s): Birds; Fields; Singing & Singers; Trees; Pastures; Meadows; Leas; Songs


Sing sweetly, Killoré,
La la hu lala!
My little bird in the reeds!
Sing sweetly, for the little one is crying.
Why is the little one crying so?
Why is there all this come and go?
Is the heart of the little one, lying there,
A heavier heart than it can bear
Or than leaps in the bird in the reeds?
La la hu lala, sleep, babykin, sleep.
Between the grassy hillside and the fields
There is a way, as you can see,
To sleep among the rosemary,
The rosemary so scented with the rain.
To meet again, down underground,
The brook that runs with the wood's soft sound
And never to see the light of day,
There is a way.

It isn't far to my little farm
Where the dove-cote scents come down with the clover.
Do you know what will make the little one calm?
To take him away, to carry him over,
La la hu lala
From Moux and Pioray.
Do you know what it takes to cover away
As splendid a love as you ever did see?
No more than it takes to make a green tree.
Do you know what is needed to shelter and hide
All the love of heaven and my countryside,
The greatest burden, the heaviest care,
And the story I tell me everywhere
That the earth's old gray back has room for me?
A little solitary
Tree.
Quite ordinary,
Round or reaching high,
With a black magpie
On a bough, la la hu,
With a black magpie on a bough.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net