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Poetry · Poem

Cradle Song

William BlakeEnglish RomanticismPoem
SOURCE TEXT · English original
SLEEP, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming in the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel
Smiles as of the morning steal
O’er thy cheek, and o’er thy breast
Where thy little heart doth rest.

O the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep!
When thy little heart doth wake,
Then the dreadful night shall break.
Cultural reading

Reading the poem

A lullaby over a sleeping infant traces soft desires, secret smiles and morning-like smiles stealing over its face, then turns to the cunning wiles creeping in the sleeping heart and warns that when that heart wakes a dreadful night will break.

Language notes

Text and edition

The English text follows the fixed historical witness in The Oxford Book of English Verse; no modern third-party translation is included.