by Coleridge · Cluster: Maturation and Growth · Childhood · Innocence and Experience
Abstract
A tender lullaby to an American infant contrasting wealthy Columbia with poor Britain yet affirming all are children of one God of Love; childhood, poverty, and divine love.
Connections
Motifs: Childhood Themes & Concepts: Maturation and Growth, Divine Love, Poverty Forms & Genres: Lyric, Comic Verse Song Historical References: Bible
Testo integrale / Full text
You come from o’er the waters,
From famed Columbia’s land,
And you have sons and daughters,
And money at command.
But I live in an island,
Great Britain is its name,
With money none to buy land,
The more it is the shame.
But we are all the children
Of one great God of Love,
Whose mercy like a mill-drain
Runs over from above.
Lullaby, lullaby,
Sugar-plums and cates,
Close your little peeping eye,
Bonny Baby B —— s.
First collected 1893. ‘Baby Bates’ was the daughter of Joshua Bates, one
of the donors of the Boston Library. Her father and mother passed a year
(1828-1829) at Highgate, ‘close to the house of Dr. and Mrs. Gillman.’
See a letter to Mrs. Bates from S. T. C. dated Jan. 23, 1829. N. and
Q. 4th Series, i. 469.