A Lullaby
I am become one with you. I am old. I am tired.
Watch my hands how they slip. One by one the fingers let go.
Into my house comes my enemy bold. His beard sweeps the floor. He is old. He is hatred and lust.
Soft creeps the night in the passages old—creeping along—creeping along. Soft creeps the wind in the old standing corn.
Into my body my enemy comes. Watch my fingers let go—slow—oh, so slow.
Words in this poem
- lust v. i.
- To list; to like. [AS. lystan. See Lust, n., and cf. List to choose.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Lullaby is in the public domain. This text is taken from Mid-American Chants (New York: John Lane Company; London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1918), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Sherwood Anderson, A Lullaby, in Mid-American Chants (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/anderson-mid-american-chants/a-lullaby.html, id L29459.
About this section
A Lullaby is prose, printed in 5 paragraphs. It is part of the edition and is kept for reading, but nothing here is measured: the line breaks are the printer's, so no metre, rhyme scheme or scansion is stated.
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.