Cradle Song

p. 65

CRADLE SONG

Sleep. I have brought your baubles far from Sardis; your clothes from Babylon. Sleep on: daughter of Bilitis and a king of the rising sun.

The woods, these arc the palaces that have been built for you--that I have given. The trunks of pine-trees are your colonnades; the branches flying high upon the air, your vaulted ceiling.

Sleep. I'll sell the sunlight to the heaving sea that it may not awaken you. Your breath is lighter than the breeze stirred by the wings of snowy doves.

Daughter of mine, flesh of my flesh, you'll tell me when you waken if you wish the city or the meadow, the mountain or the moon, or just the white procession of the gods.