Cradle Song
All go to sleep.
Plowers and fleecers: twelve o'clock mowers:
Go to sleep, to sleep.
As far, as far as we know.
As far as we know.
Elephant trainers: wallpaper hangers: corncob pipe-smoking porters:
Will all at the wave of a hat go to sleep.
Maplesap boilers: climbing rope coilers:
To sleep, before long or gradually, to sleep.
Congressional pages: pundits and sages: acolytes and choir girls:
To sleep now to sleep.
As far as we know.
As far as we know, we'll know.
Shopkeepers, goalkeepers, timekeepers, lighthouse-keepers:
At long last, to sleep.
Steeplejacks, lumberjacks, jack-hammerers, and apple-jacks:
To sleep, now to sleep.
As far as we know when we know;
as far as we know.
Deep as the chimney shaft
That passes your bed,
And wide as the rough black roof overhead:
Now to sleep, tiny child, now to sleep.
As far as we know.
As far as we know.
This poem is the first of four lullabies
published in Jim Schley's chapbook One Another (available from Chapiteau Press) |
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