Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/336

 330 GOING TO SLEEP.

GOING TO SLEEP.

STEPPING straight off the shore Of a twilight frolic gay Into the arms of Sleep That is the baby s way. Down, till the tender mouth Quivers with baby-dreams, And the silver dew of sleep

On the nestled forehead gleams.

Making good fight a while,

Rubbing with school-boy fist His eyes, till lights about

Shimmer in rings of mist, With many a dreaming start

Of playground s scare or leap, Till the rough red hands lie still

So Freddie goes to sleep.

Nellie, with half-shut eyes,

Drifts onward dreamily Through the happy border-land

Of a moonlight reverie, Until, like a folded rose,

Or lily of the lake, Sleep shuts her senses up

Till a new dawn awake.

Protesting stoutly still Against Sleep s mastery,

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