by Coleridge · Cluster: Death · Silence · Bells
Abstract
Tender epitaph for a dead infant, Death singing it to sleep with a lullaby. Themes of mortality, childhood innocence and grief.
Connections
Motifs: Death, Childhood, Sleep Themes & Concepts: Mortality, Innocence and Experience, Grief and Loss Forms & Genres: Elegy Characters: Death Personified
Testo integrale / Full text
Its balmy lips the infant blest
Relaxing from its Mother’s breast,
How sweet it heaves the happy sigh
Of innocent satiety!
And such my Infant’s latest sigh! 5
Oh tell, rude stone! the passer by,
That here the pretty babe doth lie,
Death sang to sleep with Lullaby.
1811.