Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
Mother sits beside thee smiling;
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:
Come, soft slumber, balmily!
The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn
Summary
"The Virgin's Cradle Hymn" is a brief, luminous lullaby poem in which a mother bends over her sleeping child, softly spinning and singing away her own worries. The poem captures the quiet ache of maternal devotion — her joy entirely bound to the infant's peace, her heart mourning when rest does not come. In just a handful of lines, Coleridge distils the hush of a nighttime vigil into something tender and almost sacred.
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