"A Child Asleep" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)—Printable Poem

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Click here to print. How he sleepeth! having drunken Weary childhood's mandragore, From his pretty eyes have sunken Pleasures, to make room for more— Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before. Nosegays! leave them for the waking: Throw them earthward where they grew. Dim are such, beside the breaking Amaranths he looks unto— Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do. Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden From the paths they sprang beneath, Now perhaps divinely holden, Swing against him in a wreath— We may think so from the quickening of his bloom and of his breath.

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