by William Blake (1757 - 1827)
A cradle song See original
Language: English
Our translations: GER
Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming o'er 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.
...
O! the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep.
When thy little heart does wake
Then the dreadful lightnings break,
From thy cheek and from thy eye,
O'er the youthful harvests nigh.
Infant wiles and infant smiles
Heaven and Earth of peace beguiles.
Composition:
- Set to music by (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "A cradle song", op. 41 no. 1, published 1949, stanzas 1-2,4-5 [ mezzo-soprano and piano ], from A Charm of Lullabies, no. 1, London : Boosey & Hawkes
Text Authorship:
- by William Blake (1757 - 1827), "A cradle song", written c1793, appears in Notebook, possibly intended for Songs of Innocence
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this page: Geoffrey Wieting
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 20
Word count: 109