A Cradle Song
Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,Dreaming in the joys of night;Sleep, sleep; in thy sleepLittle sorrows sit and weep.
Sweet babe, in thy faceSoft desires I can trace,Secret joys and secret smiles,Little pretty infant wiles.
As thy softest limbs I feel,Smiles as of the morning stealO’er thy cheek, and o’er thy breastWhere thy little heart doth rest.
O the cunning wiles that creepIn thy little heart asleep!When thy little heart doth wake,Then the dreadful light shall break.
Words in this poem
- babe n.
- An infant; a young child of either sex; a baby. [Cf. Ir. bab, baban, W. baban, maban.]
- dreadful a.
- Full of dread or terror; fearful.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Cradle Song is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Project Gutenberg ebook #1934; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Blake, A Cradle Song, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1934, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-songs/a-cradle-song-2.html, id L02912.
Form and metre
A Cradle Song is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.6 syllables. 31% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB brightA · nightA · sleepB · weepB
- 2 AABB faceA · traceA · smilesB · wilesB
- 3 AABB feelA · stealA · breastB · restB
- 4 AABB creepA · asleepA · wakeB · breakB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sleep, sleep, beauty bright, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Dreaming in the joys of night; | 7 | /˘····· |
| Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep | 5 | ····· |
| Little sorrows sit and weep. | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Sweet babe, in thy face | 5 | ····· |
| Soft desires I can trace, | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| Secret joys and secret smiles, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Little pretty infant wiles. | 7 | /˘/˘/˘· |
| As thy softest limbs I feel, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Smiles as of the morning steal | 7 | ····/˘· |
| O’er thy cheek, and o’er thy breast | 7 | ······· |
| Where thy little heart doth rest. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| O the cunning wiles that creep | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| In thy little heart asleep! | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| When thy little heart doth wake, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Then the dreadful light shall break. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.