Famous Lullaby Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Lullaby poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous lullaby poems. These examples illustrate what a famous lullaby poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Elinor Wylie
The old moon is tarnished
With smoke of the flood,
The dead leaves are varnished
With colour like blood.
A treacherous smiler
With teeth white as milk,
A savage beguiler
In sheathings of silk
The sea creeps to pillage,
She leaps on her prey;
A child of the village
Was murdered today.
She came up to meet him
In...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
Sleep, pretty lady, the night is enfolding you;
Drift, and so lightly, on crystalline streams.
Wrapped in its perfumes, the darkness is holding you;
Starlight bespangles the way of your dreams.
Chorus the nightingales, wistfully amorous;
Blessedly quiet, the blare of the day.
All the sweet hours may your visions be glamorous-
Sleep, pretty lady, as long as you may.
Sleep, pretty lady, the night shall be...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
Softly lie down
and close your eyes so blue
worry no more
for tonight I'll watch over you
Gently rest your head
against my soothing chest
for here in my arms
you've found a safe place to rest
Sleep sweet child
in peaceful undisturbed dreams
and don't awake
until the morning beams
June 25, 2006
©2006 Fenny...Read more of this...
by
Walt Whitman
1
PROUD music of the storm!
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!
Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras!
You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,
Blending, with Nature’s rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;
You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses!
You formless, free, religious dances! you...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
Now the day is done,
Now the shepherd sun
Drives his white flocks from the sky;
Now the flowers rest
On their mother's breast,
Hushed by her low lullaby.
Now the glowworms glance,
Now the fireflies dance,
Under fern-boughs green and high;
And the western breeze
To the forest trees
Chants a tuneful lullaby.
Now 'mid shadows deep
Falls...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Beloved, may your sleep be sound
That have found it where you fed.
What were all the world's alarms
To mighty paris when he found
Sleep upon a golden bed
That first dawn in Helen's arms?
Sleep, beloved, such a sleep
As did that wild Tristram know
When, the potion's work being done,
Roe could run or doe could leap
Under oak and beechen bough,
Roe could leap or doe...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Oh, the little bird is rocking in the cradle of the wind,
And it's bye, my little wee one, bye;
The harvest all is gathered and the pippins all are binned;
Bye, my little wee one, bye;
The little rabbit's hiding in the golden shock of corn,
The thrifty squirrel's laughing bunny's idleness to scorn;
You are smiling with the angels in your slumber, smile till...Read more of this...
by
Badger Clark
Desert blue and silver in the still moonshine,
Coyote yappin' lazy on the hill,
Sleepy winks of lightnin' down the far sky line,
Time for millin' cattle to be still.
_So--o now, the lightnin's far away,_
_The coyote's nothiny skeery;_
...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
The sky is dark and the hills are white
As the storm-king speeds from the north to-night,
And this is the song the storm-king sings,
As over the world his cloak he flings:
"Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;"
He rustles his wings and gruffly sings:
"Sleep, little one, sleep."
On yonder mountain-side a vine
Clings at the foot of a mother pine;
The tree bends over the trembling...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
A moonbeam floateth from the skies,
Whispering, "Heigho, my dearie!
I would spin a web before your eyes,--
A beautiful web of silver light,
Wherein is many a wondrous sight
Of a radiant garden leagues away,
Where the softly tinkling lilies sway,
And the snow-white lambkins are at play,--
Heigho, my dearie!"
A brownie stealeth from the vine
Singing, "Heigho, my dearie!
And will you hear this song of mine,--
A...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Scott
hush thee, my babie, thy sire was a knight,
Thy mother a lady, both lovely and bright;
The woods and the glens, from the towers which we see,
They all are belonging, dear babie, to thee.
O ho ro, i ri ri, cadul gu lo,
O ho ro, i ri ri, cadul gu lo.
O fear not the bugle, though loudly it blows,
It calls but...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Out on the mountain over the town,
All night long, all night long,
The trolls go up and the trolls go down,
Bearing their packs and crooning a song;
And this is the song the hill-folk croon,
As they trudge in the light of the misty moon,--
This is ever their dolorous tune:
"Gold, gold! ever more gold,--
Bright red gold for dearie!"
Deep in the hill the...Read more of this...
by
Lam Quang My
You sitting by the window
Copy poems with great care.
As I pass accidentally
Watch you dazed as in a dream.
So skilled your calligraphic hand
Floats pen on paper surface.
An unknown sense of poetry
Shines within your blinking eyes.
Window takes the colour green
Your shirt is a canary shade.
Little bird is flying by
And sings with sweetest voice.
Weather mourns autumnally.
Yellowed leaves of trees.
Regret of summer still...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings,--
Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes;
Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging--
Swinging the nest where her little one lies.
Away out yonder I see a star,--
Silvery star with a tinkling song;
To the soft dew falling I hear it calling--
Calling and tinkling the night along.
In through the window a moonbeam comes,--
Little gold moonbeam with misty...Read more of this...
by
Elizabeth Bishop
Minnow, go to sleep and dream,
Close your great big eyes;
Round your bed Events prepare
The pleasantest surprise.
Darling Minnow, drop that frown,
Just cooperate,
Not a kitten shall be drowned
In the Marxist State.
Joy and Love will both be yours,
Minnow, don't be glum.
Happy days are coming soon--
Sleep, and let them come......Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
I hear Thy voice, dear Lord;
I hear it by the stormy sea
When winter nights are black and wild,
And when, affright, I call to Thee;
It calms my fears and whispers me,
"Sleep well, my child."
I hear Thy voice, dear Lord,
In singing winds, in falling snow,
The curfew chimes, the midnight bell.
"Sleep well, my child," it murmurs low;
"The guardian angels come and go,--
O...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
"A Priest in Spite of Himself"
"How far is St. Helena from a little child at play!"
What makes you want to wander there with all the world
between.
Oh, Mother, call your son again or else he'll run away.
(No one thinks of winter when the grass is green!)
"How far is St. Helena from a fight in Paris street?"
I haven't time to...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Hush, little one, and fold your hands;
The sun hath set, the moon is high;
The sea is singing to the sands,
And wakeful posies are beguiled
By many a fairy lullaby:
Hush, little child, my little child!
Dream, little one, and in your dreams
Float upward from this lowly place,--
Float out on mellow, misty streams
To lands where bideth Mary mild,
And let her kiss thy little...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
It is a summer evening.
The yellow moths sag
against the locked screens
and the faded curtains
suck over the window sills
and from another building
a goat calls in his dreams.
This is the TV parlor
in the best ward at Bedlam.
The night nurse is passing
out the evening pills.
She walks on two erasers,
padding by us one by one.
MY sleeping pill is white.
It is a splendid pearl;
it...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Bedtime 's come fu' little boys.
Po' little lamb.
Too tiahed out to make a noise,
Po' little lamb.
You gwine t' have to-morrer sho'?
Yes, you tole me dat befo',
Don't you fool me, chile, no mo',
Po' little lamb.
You been bad de livelong day,
Po' little lamb.
Th'owin' stones an' runnin' 'way,
Po' little lamb.
My, but you 's a-runnin' wil',
Look jes' lak some po' folks chile;
Mam' gwine whup...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Wintah time hit comin'
Stealin' thoo de night;
Wake up in the mo'nin'
Evah t'ing is white;
Cabin lookin' lonesome
Stannin' in de snow,
Meks you kin' o' nervous,
Wen de win' hit blow.
Trompin' back from feedin',
Col' an' wet an' blue,
Homespun jacket ragged,
Win' a-blowin' thoo.
Cabin lookin' cheerful,
Unnerneaf de do',
Yet you kin' o' keerful
Wen de win' hit blow.
Hickory log a-blazin'
Light a-lookin' red,
Faith o' eyes o' peepin'
'Rom a trun'le...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,--
Sailed on a river of misty light
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
The old moon laughed and sung...Read more of this...
by
Louise Gluck
My mother's an expert in one thing:
sending people she loves into the other world.
The little ones, the babies--these
she rocks, whispering or singing quietly. I can't say
what she did for my father;
whatever it was, I'm sure it was right.
It's the same thing, really, preparing a person
for sleep, for death. The lullabies--they all say
don't be afraid, that's how they paraphrase
the heartbeat...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake thee
Asleep...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
The wind is out in its rage to-night,
And your father is far at sea.
The rime on the window is hard and white
But dear, you are near to me.
Heave ho, weave low,
Waves of the briny deep;
Seethe low and breathe low,
But sleep you, my little one, sleep, sleep.
The little boat rocks in the cove no more,
But the flying sea-gulls wail;
I peer through...Read more of this...
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