|
Poet: William Blake
Poem: Sleep! Sleep! Beauty Bright
Comment 1 of 1, added on July 17th, 2006 at 11:44 AM.
This poem is in the Notebook collection, and is listed as "A Cradle Song". Five stanza poem that has someone revealing the attributes of being an innocent babe. The skin is soft, the smile begiles Heaven and Earth, the limbs are as smooth and subtle as the rising first light of the morning.
This is a gentle poem that can transport the reader back to the times spent with the first newborn. I know I couldn't get enough of looking at my first child when he slept. He was a miracle in the flesh to me.
This poem seems to have been reincarnated in the Songs of Innocence as "A Cradle Song", but with more "drama" added. The smile is now "his own" and more wishes seem to be added on. The mother weeps over the child, and there is an illustration of a mother weeping at the infant's bedside.
I like the draft from the notebook. I also think that the two versions of the Cradle Song work well with Blake's "the Nurse's Song", "Infant Joy" (both from Songs of Innocence) and Yeats "To A Child Dancing In The Wind". In the latter, the child is older, but is still innocent.
dallas holsten from United States
Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, Sleep! Sleep! Beauty Bright, has received one comment so far. Click here to read it, and perhaps post a comment of your own. Of course you can also always discuss poems by William Blake with others on the Poetry Connection poetry forum!
|
Copyright © 2003-2008 Gunnar Bengtsson, Poetry Connection. All Rights Reserved.
This poem is in the Notebook collection, and is listed as "A Cradle Song". Five stanza poem that has someone revealing the attributes of being an innocent babe. The skin is soft, the smile begiles Heaven and Earth, the limbs are as smooth and subtle as the rising first light of the morning.
This is a gentle poem that can transport the reader back to the times spent with the first newborn. I know I couldn't get enough of looking at my first child when he slept. He was a miracle in the flesh to me.
This poem seems to have been reincarnated in the Songs of Innocence as "A Cradle Song", but with more "drama" added. The smile is now "his own" and more wishes seem to be added on. The mother weeps over the child, and there is an illustration of a mother weeping at the infant's bedside.
I like the draft from the notebook. I also think that the two versions of the Cradle Song work well with Blake's "the Nurse's Song", "Infant Joy" (both from Songs of Innocence) and Yeats "To A Child Dancing In The Wind". In the latter, the child is older, but is still innocent.
dallas holsten from United States