A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.

A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.

Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving:
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting!
read more

Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving:
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting!
Black manhood comes when riotous guilty living
Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.

"The hand that rocks the cradle"--but there is no such hand.
It is bad to rock the baby, they read more

"The hand that rocks the cradle"--but there is no such hand.
It is bad to rock the baby, they would have us understand;
So the cradle's but a relic of the former foolish days,
When mothers reared their children in unscientific ways;
When they jounced them and they bounced them, those poor dwarfs
of long ago--
The Washingtons and Jeffersons, you know.

The morning that my baby came
They found a baby swallow dead,
And saw a something hard read more

The morning that my baby came
They found a baby swallow dead,
And saw a something hard to name
Fly mothlike over baby's bed.

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

There came to port last Sunday night
The queerest little craft,
Without an inch of rigging on;
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There came to port last Sunday night
The queerest little craft,
Without an inch of rigging on;
I looked and looked--and laughed.
It seemed so curious that she
Should cross the unknown water,
And moor herself within my room--
My daughter! O my daughter!

He smiles, and sleeps!--sleep on
And smile, thou little, young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: read more

He smiles, and sleeps!--sleep on
And smile, thou little, young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: sleep on and smile!
Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering
And innocent!

Baloo, baloo, my wee, wee thing.

Baloo, baloo, my wee, wee thing.

Her beads while she numbered,
The baby still slumbered,
And smile in her face, as she bended read more

Her beads while she numbered,
The baby still slumbered,
And smile in her face, as she bended her knee;
Oh! bless'd be that warning,
My child, thy sleep adorning,
For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.