Elizabeth Barrett Browning - A Child Asleep lyrics

 How he sleepeth, having drunken
   Weary childhood's mandragore!
 From it's pretty eyes have sunken
   Pleasures to make room for more
Sleeping near the withered nosegay which
He pulled the day before

 Nosegays! leave them for the waking
   Throw them earthward
Where they grew
 Dim are such beside the breaking
   Amaranths he looks unto:
Folded eyes see brighter colours than
The open ever do

 Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden
   From the palms
They sprang beneath
 Now perhaps divinely holden
   Swing against him in a wreath:
We may think so from the quickening of
His bloom and of his breath

 Vision unto vision calleth
   While the young child dreameth on:
 Fair, O dreamer, thee befalleth
   With the glory thou hast won!
Darker wast thou in the garden
Yestermorn by summer sun

 We should see the spirit's ringing
   Round thee, were the clouds away:
 'T is the child heart draws them
Singing
   In the silent-seeming clay
Singing! stars that seem the mutest go
In music all the way

 As the moths around a taper
   As the bees around a rose
 As the gnats around a vapour
   So the spirit's group and close
Round about a holy childhood as
If drinking it's repose

 Shapes of brightness overlean thee
   Flash their diadems of youth
 On the ringlets which half screen thee
   While thou smilest not in sooth
Thy smile, but the overfair one
Dropt from some etherial mouth

 Haply it is angels' duty
   During slumber, shade by shade
 To fine down this childish beauty
   To the thing it must be made
Ere the world shall bring it praises
Or the tomb shall see it fade

 Softly, softly! make no noises!
   Now he lieth dead and dumb
 Now he hears the angels' voices
   Folding silence in the room
Now he muses deep the meaning of
The Heaven-words as they come

 Speak not! he is consecrated
   Breathe no breath across his eyes:
 Lifted up and separated
   On the hand of God he lies
In a sweetness beyond touching
Held in cloistral sanctities

 Could ye bless him, father mother
   Bless the dimple in his cheek?
 Dare ye look at one another
   And the benediction speak?
Would ye not break out in weeping
And confess yourselves too weak?

 He is harmless, ye are sinful
   Ye are troubled, he at ease
 From his slumber virtue winful
   Floweth outward with increase
Dare not bless him! but be
Blessèd by his peace, and go in peace