NOTE.--In Tennyson's long poem _The Princess_ is a little lullaby
so wonderfully sweet that all who have read it wish to read it
again. It is one that we all love, no matter whether we are little
children and hear it sung to us or are older children and look back
to the evenings when we listened to mother's loving voice as she
led us gently into the land of dreams while she watched patiently
for father's return.
Here are the stanzas which are usually known by the name _Sweet and
Low_:
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps.
Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west
Under the silver moon:
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.
It is interesting to try to determine just how a great poet makes
us feel so strongly the thing that he tells us. In this case
Tennyson thinks of a mother in England and a father who is
somewhere in the West, out on the broad Atlantic, but is coming
home to his little one. The mother dreams only of the home-coming
of her husband, and she wishes the baby to learn to love its father
as much as she does, so as she sings the little one to sleep, she
pours out her love for both in beautiful melody.
To express this mother-love and anxious care the poet has chosen
simple words that have rich, musical sounds, that can be spoken
easily and smoothly and that linger on the tongue. He speaks of the
sea, the gentle wind, the rolling waters, the dying moon and the
silver sails, all of which call up ideas that rest us and make us
happy, and then with rare skill he arranges the words so that when
we read the lines we can feel the gentle rocking movement that
lulls the little one, the pretty one into its gentle slumbers.