Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/610

 WILLIAM BLAKE

What the hammer? What the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

��504 Cradle Song

rLEEP, sleep, beauty bright,

Dreaming in 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.

As thy softest limbs I feel, Smiles as of the morning steal O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast Where thy little heart doth rest.

O the cunning wiles that creep In thy little heart asleep! When thy little heart doth wake, Then the dreadful night shall break.

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