The baby sleeping—
Lies in milky Dreams—²
Oft before their Infant Eyes will run
Such forms as glitter in the muse’s ray.³
Happy those early days—
When we shine in our Angel-Infancy!⁴
Already New-Born Children interpret
Love in the voices of their Mothers.⁵
Where there is a baby—
Things are Right enough—⁶
Babies help us: they Laugh for no reason—⁷
The Baby’s Smile at the flower is
The Beauty of the flower—
The beauty of the World!⁸
Blessèd babe! How Glorious:
Spotless fair, divinely bright!⁹
Our babe shews their
Godhead true.¹⁰
¹ Lord Byron, The Prisoner of Chillon
² Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Casa Guidi Windows
³ Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy
⁴ Henry Vaughan, The Retreat
⁵ Wallace Stevens, In the Carolinas
⁶ George Eliot, Middlemarch
⁷ Naomi Shihab Nye, My Wisdom
⁸ Ursula K. Le Guin, Old Music and the Slave Women
⁹ Isaac Watts, A Cradle Hymn
¹⁰ John Milton, Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity