All Through
the Night
Night Poems & Lullabies
Edited by Marie Heaney
For Anna Rose, Aibhín and Síofra
Poetry Ireland Ltd / Éigse Éireann Teo gratefully acknowledges the
assistance of The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and The
Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and The Westbury, Dublin.
The moral right of the copyright holders has been asserted.
ISBN: 978-1-902121-61-1
Prepared for publication by:
Paul Lenehan, Muireann Sheahan,
Olivia May, Ariana Kaufmann, Daniel
Tatlow-Devally and Catherine Ward
Design and illustrations: Paula McGloin, www.paulamcgloin.com
First published by Poetry Ireland, 2016, www.poetryireland.ie
CONTENTS
Introduction
xiii
Bill Caddick
John O’ Dreams
1
Thomas Dekker
‘Golden Slumbers’
3
John Ceiriog Hughes
Ar Hyd Y Nos
4
All Through the Night
5
Eugene Field
A Dutch Lullaby 6
Irish Traditional
Fair Rosa 8
Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon
The Sleepy Song
10
Irish TraditionalMy Singing Bird
12
WB Yeats
A Cradle Song
13
Irish Traditional
Seoithín, Seo Hó
14
Hushaby, Hush
15
Irish Traditional The Castle of Dromore
16
Joseph Campbell
The Gartan Mother’s Lullaby
17
John IrvineThe Winter Night
18
Delia MurphyConnemara Cradle Song
19
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
21
Sweet and low
Padraic ColumA Cradle Song
22
Moira O’NeillGrace for Light
23
American Traditional
24
Hush, Little Baby
viii
Stephen Foster
Slumber My Darling 25
German Traditional
‘Roses Whisper Good Night’
27
Pádraig Pearse
Lullaby of a Woman of
the Mountain
28
Michael Longley
Lullaby
29
Seamus Heaney
Serenades 30
Frank Ormsby Helen
31
Paul Muldoon Cradle Song for Asher
32
Peter SirrPPS
33
Vincent BuckleyFor Brigid35
Eavan Boland Energies
36
Gabriela MistralMidnight
38
Sara Berkeley Tolchin
Smoke from Oregon Fires
40
Gerard Smyth
Poem to a Granddaughter
42
Tony Curtis
When I Was a Child
43
William BlakeNurse’s Song44
Robert Louis Stevenson Escape at Bedtime
45
Robert Louis Stevenson Bed in Summer
46
Edna St Vincent Millay Grown-Up 47
Irish Traditional
Deirín Dé
48
The Last Wisp of Smoke
49
William Shakespeare
‘I know a bank ...’
50
William Shakespeare
‘You spotted snakes ...’
51
Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter Cradle Song
52
Nancy Willard
54
Night Song
ix
Sylvia Plath
Alicante Lullaby 55
Shane MacGowan
Lullaby of London
56
Australian Traditional Yo-Ho, Little Fishy
58
Robert Frost
60
Acquainted with the Night
Dennis O’DriscollNocturne
61
Moya Cannon
Night62
Walter de la Mare
Silver
64
Emily Dickinson
‘The moon was but a chin ...’
65
Ted Hughes Full Moon and Little Frieda
66
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ‘O sleep! It is a gentle thing’
67
William Shakespeare
‘Methought I heard a voice cry’ 68
William Wordsworth
To Sleep
Paul Durcan
How I Envy the Homeless Man 70
Máire Mhac an tSaoi
‘ “Ní chodlaím ist oíche”’
72
‘ “I don’t sleep at night”’
72
Gerald Dawe
Serenade
John Montague
11 Rue Daguerre
69
73
74
Seamus Heaney Night Drive 75
Tiomáint Oíche 76
Thom Gunn
The Night Piece
77
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin The Copious Dark
78
Greg Delanty
While Reading Poets in
Their Youth
80
Peter Fallon
An Open Fire
81
Thomas Hardy
The Oxen
82
x
Ciaran Carson
Sunset
83
William Shakespeare
‘Be not afeard; the isle is full ...’ 84
WH Auden
Lullaby
85
Robert Graves She Tells Her Love While
Half Asleep
87
Theo Dorgan
She Buckles in Her Sleep
88
Maxine Kumin
After Love
89
Robert Burns
Lassie Lie Near Me 90
I Leave This At Your Ear
91
WS Graham
Anne Le Marquand The Hawser
Hartigan
92
Thomas Moore
At the Mid Hour of Night
93
Matthew Arnold
Dover Beach
94
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Gaineamh Shúraic
96
Quicksand
97
Emily Brontë
‘I’m happiest when most away’
98
Derek Mahon
The Dawn Chorus
99
Mairéad Donnellan
Rock-a-bye
100
Paula Meehan
The Quilt
101
Jane Kenyon
Let Evening Come
102
Anonymous
Evening Hymn
103
Emily Dickinson
‘When night is almost done’
104
Norman MacCaig
Four o’clock blackbird
105
Theodore Roethke
My Papa’s Waltz
106
Louis MacNeice
Autobiography
107
Lavinia Greenlaw
English Lullaby
109
xi
Sir Thomas Wyatt
‘They flee from me’
110
John Keats
Ode to a Nightingale
111
George Gordon,
Lord Byron
We’ll go no more a-roving115
Thomas Moore
‘Oft, in the stilly night’
116
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into
that good night
118
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Crossing the Bar
119
William Shakespeare
‘Now cracks a noble heart’ 120
Introduction
All Through The Night
We incline to think of night as a time of peace, rest and
relaxation: a time that brings freedom from the cares of the
day, a time to dream, to make love and to embrace blessed
sleep which, in Shakespeare’s words, knits up the ravell’d
sleeve of care. And this is, indeed, a reality; but night can
bring with it other, less benign experiences. With darkness
can come sleeplessness and its attendant sadness, anxiety
and guilt, emotions that are often more intensely felt at
night than during the day with all its distractions. A time
when, to borrow a phrase from Keats, conscience burrows
like a mole and we are haunted by fears and regrets. Both
these aspects of the night, happiness and sadness, are
explored by the poems in this collection.
Lullabies, quiet songs to lull a child to sleep and other poems
relating to children, form the opening section. The poems
in the second part of the collection celebrate the various
night-time pleasures as well as giving voice to the anxieties
that beset us during the night.
Even in lullabies, there are traces of anxiety. Fears for the
wellbeing of the child and the future that lies ahead of it
are recurring themes. In ‘Connemara Cradle Song’, a
mother soothes her child but her concern for the safety
xiii
xiv
Introduction
of the child’s sea-faring father creeps into the song.
Tennyson’s song ‘Sweet and low’ echoes the preoccupations
of these lullabies in the folk idiom.
In ‘Seoithín Seo Hó’, a lullaby in the Irish language, the
parent is guarding the child from the Sidhe (known in
English as the fairies), who in the folklore tradition were
believed to abduct human children and bring them to the
world they inhabited, under the lakes and mounds and fairy
thorn trees that were scattered over the landscape. And
there are the beautiful lines spoken by the fairies from
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to lull Titania
to sleep.
In the Christian lullabies it is angels who are invoked to
watch over the sleeping children, though in some of them,
notably ‘The Castle of Dromore’, Christian beliefs and
pagan Celtic beliefs are enmeshed.
As any parent will tell you, children do not always respond
to the soothing words designed to send them to sleep. This
finds expression in the poems written for children, in the
voices of children, by Robert Louis Stevenson, a master of
this genre. Two of his poems give expression to a child’s
unwillingness to go to bed. And William Blake’s unexpectedly
joyful poem ‘Nurse’s Song’ gives happy consent to that
wilfulness.
Poems concerning birth and babies might be seen as the
domain of mothers, and there are poems about this primal
Introduction
relationship, but I’m happy to include a number of poems,
welcoming the newly born, from fathers and grandfathers.
The natural world, its flora and fauna, permeate many of
the poems in this collection but it is particularly prevalent
in the lullabies and the other poems concerning children.
However, I have also included a number of lullabies set
in urban environments. Sylvia Plath’s ‘Alicante Lullaby’, a
poem full of noise, is a fine example, and there are other
poems set in Belfast, Dublin, London and America where
local concerns add authenticity and interest to the material.
The poems in the night poems section are very wide-ranging
in both emotional expression and subject matter, and they
bring the reader to unexpected places. However, unsurprisingly,
sleep is still a preoccupation: praise for it, the need for it,
the desire for it and the lack of it, is the subject matter of a
number of these poems. The adult’s fear of insomnia replaces
the child’s reluctance to go to sleep. Even Wordsworth, in
his gentle poem, ‘To Sleep’, admits to counting sheep to
no avail. Other poets are disturbed by the prospect of the
trials that a sleepless night can bring.
However, for some poets even sleeplessness has its rewards:
the scent of flowers, intensified by the night air, the birds
that are still awake and singing, the beauty of the night sky.
The moon comes in for special praise. Walter De La Mare
in his famous poem ‘Silver’ and Ted Hughes in the poem
about his daughter, ‘Full Moon and Little Frieda’, bring
the moon to life to great effect.
xv
xvi
Introduction
Night brings blessings, other than rest and sleep, not least
lovemaking, and there are a number of tender, sensual poems
by modern poets on that subject. I have included two
iconic poems, WH Auden’s love poem ‘Lullaby’ and Sir
Thomas Wyatt’s ‘They Flee From Me Who Sometime Did
Me Seek’, an angry poem about love betrayed, written in
the seventeenth century.
The collection closes with poems that, in Matthew Arnold’s
words, ‘bring the eternal note of sadness in’. There is an
elegiac tone to these last poems as the poets mourn the
loss of their youth, the death of loved ones, and turn to
face, in their characteristic ways, the prospect of that last
long sleep that awaits us all.
Marie Heaney
Bill Caddick
John O’ Dreams
When midnight sings, good people homeward tread
Seek now your blanket and your feather bed
Home is the rover, his journey’s over
Yield up the night-time to old John o’ Dreams
Yield up the night-time to old John o’ Dreams.
Across the hills the sun has gone astray
Tomorrow’s cares are many dreams away
The stars are flying, your candle’s dying
Yield up the darkness to old John o’ Dreams
Yield up the darkness to old John o’ Dreams.
Both man and master in the night are one
All things are equal when the day is done
The prince and the ploughman, the slave and the freeman
All find their comfort in old John o’ Dreams
All find their comfort in old John o’ Dreams.
Now as you sleep the dreams come winging clear
The hawks of morning cannot harm you here
Sleep is your river, flows on forever
And for your boatman choose old John o’ Dreams
And for your boatman choose old John o’ Dreams.
1
2
When midnight sings, good people homeward tread
Seek now your blanket and your feather bed
Home is the rover, his journey’s over
Yield up the night-time to old John o’ Dreams
Yield up the night-time to old John o’ Dreams.
Home is the rover, his journey’s over
Yield up the night-time to old John o’ Dreams
Yield up the night-time to old John o’ Dreams.
3
Thomas Dekker
‘Golden Slumbers’
Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise.
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby:
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
Care is heavy, therefore sleep you,
You are care and care must keep you.
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby:
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
from Patient Grissel
4
John Ceiriog Hughes
Ar hyd y nos
Holl amrantau’r sêr ddywedant
Ar hyd y nos.
Dyma’r ffordd i fro gogoniant
Ar hyd y nos.
Golau arall yw tywyllwch,
I arddangos gwir brydferthwch,
Teulu’r nefoedd mewn tawelwch
Ar hyd y nos.
O mor siriol gwena seren
Ar hyd y nos.
I oleuo’i chwaer ddaearen
Ar hyd y nos,
Nos yw henaint pan ddaw cystudd,
Ond i harddu dyn a’i hwyrddydd,
Rhown ein golau gwan i’n gilydd,
Ar hyd y nos.
5
All Through the Night
Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee,
All through the night;
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night.
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and vale in slumber sleeping,
I my loving vigil keeping,
All through the night.
While the moon her watch is keeping,
All through the night;
While the weary world is sleeping,
All through the night.
O’er thy spirit gently stealing,
Visions of delight revealing,
Breathes a pure and holy feeling,
All through the night.
A popular version of the Welsh ‘Ar hyd y nos’,
by Sir Harold Boulton
6
Eugene Field
A Dutch Lullaby
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe, –
Sailed on a river of misty light
Into a sea of dew.
‘Where are you going, and what do you wish?’
The old moon asked the three.
‘We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in the beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,’
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
The old moon laughed and sung a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
That lived in the beautiful sea.
‘Now cast your nets wherever you wish,
But never afeard are we!’
So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
7
All night long their nets they threw
For the fish in the twinkling foam,
Then down from the sky came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
’ T was all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folk thought ’t was a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea;
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock on the misty sea
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three, –
Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
8
Irish Traditional
Fair Rosa
Fair Rosa was a lovely child
A lovely child, a lovely child
Fair Rosa was a lovely child,
A long time ago.
A wicked fairy cast a spell
Cast a spell, cast a spell
A wicked fairy cast a spell,
A long time ago.
Fair Rosa slept a hundred years
A hundred years, a hundred years
Fair Rosa slept a hundred years,
A long time ago.
The hedges they all grew around
Grew around, grew around
The hedges they all grew around,
A long time ago.
A handsome prince came riding by
Riding by, riding by
A handsome prince came riding by,
A long time ago.
9
He kissed fair Rosa’s lily white hand
Lily white hand, lily white hand
He kissed fair Rosa’s lily white hand,
A long time ago.
Fair Rosa will not sleep no more
Sleep no more, sleep no more
Fair Rosa will not sleep no more,
A long time ago.
10
Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon
The Sleepy Song
As soon as the fire burns red and low,
And the house upstairs is still,
She sings me a queer little sleepy song,
Of sheep that go over the hill.
The good little sheep run quick and soft,
Their colours are grey and white;
They follow their leader nose to tail,
For they must be home by night.
And one slips over and one comes next,
And one runs after behind,
The grey one’s nose at the white one’s tail,
The top of the hill they find.
And when they get to the top of the hill,
They quietly slip away;
But one runs over and one comes next –
Their colours are white and grey.
And over they go, and over they go,
And over the top of the hill,
The good little sheep run quick and soft,
And the house upstairs is still.
11
And one slips over and one comes next,
The good little, grey little sheep!
I watch how the fire burns red and low,
And she says that I fall asleep.
12
Irish Traditional
My Singing Bird
I have seen the lark soar high at morn
To sing up in the blue,
I have heard the blackbird pipe its song,
The thrush and the linnet too,
But there’s none of them can sing so sweet,
My singing bird, as you,
Ah, my singing bird as you.
If I could lure my singing bird
From its own cosy nest,
If I could catch my singing bird
I would warm it on my breast,
And on my heart my singing bird
Would sing itself to rest,
Ah, would sing itself to rest.
And I would climb the high, high tree
And I’d rob the wild bird’s nest,
And I’d bring back my singing bird
To the arms that I love the best,
For there’s none of them can sing so sweet,
My singing bird, as you,
Ah, my singing bird as you.
WB Yeats
A Cradle Song
The angels are stooping
Above your bed;
They weary of trooping
With the whimpering dead.
God’s laughing in Heaven
To see you so good;
The Sailing Seven
Are gay with His mood.
I sigh that kiss you,
For I must own
That I shall miss you
When you have grown.
13
14
Irish Traditional
Seoithín, Seo Hó
Seoithín, seo hó, mo stór é, mo leanbh
Mo sheod gan chealg, mo chuid den tsaol mhór
Seoithín, seo hó, is mór é an taitneamh,
Mo stóirín ina leaba ina chodladh gan brón.
A leanbh mo chléibh, go n-éirí do chodladh leat
Séan agus sonas a choíche in do chóir
Tá mise le do thaobh ag guí ort na mbeannacht
Seoithín, a leanbh, ní imeoidh tú leo.
Ar mhullach an tí tá siógaí geala
Faoi chaoin-ré an earraigh ag imirt ’s ag spóirt
Is seo iad aniar iad chun glaoch ar mo leanbh
Le mian le é a tharraingt isteach sa lios mór.
A leanbh, a chléibh, go n-éirí do chodladh leat
Séan is sonas a choíche in do chóir
Tá mise le do thaobh ag guí ort na mbeannacht
Seoithín, a leanbh, ní imeoidh tú leo.
Version by Seosamh Ó hÉanaí
15
Irish Traditional
Hushaby, Hush
Hushaby, hush, my child and my treasure,
my guileless jewel, my portion of life;
Hushaby, hush, it’s such a great pleasure,
my child in bed sleeping without any care.
My child, my heart, sleep soundly and well;
may good luck and happiness forever be yours;
I’m here at your side praying blessings upon you;
Hushaby, hush, you’re not going with them.
On the roof of the house there are bright fairies,
playing and sporting under the gentle rays of the spring moon;
here they come, to call my child out,
wishing to draw him into the fairy mound.
My child, my heart, sleep soundly and well;
may good luck and happiness forever be yours;
I’m here at your side praying blessings upon you;
Hushaby, hush, you’re not going with them.
English version by Joe Heaney
16
Irish Traditional
The Castle of Dromore
The October winds lament
Around the castle of Dromore
Yet peace is in her lofty halls
A pháiste gheal a stóir.
Though autumn vines may droop and die
A bud of spring are you.
Sing hushaby low, lah, loo, lo lan
Sing hushaby low, lah loo.
Bring no ill wind to hinder us
My helpless babe and me
Dread spirit of the Blackwater
Clan Eoin’s wild banshee,
And holy Mary pitying us
In heaven for grace doth sue.
Sing hushaby low, lah, loo, lo lan
Sing hushaby low, lah loo.
Take time to thrive my ray of hope
In the garden of Dromore
Take heed young eaglet till your wings
Are feathered fit to soar.
A little rest and then our land
Is full of work to do.
Sing hushaby low, lah, loo, lo lan
Sing hushaby low, lah loo.
Joseph Campbell
The Gartan Mother’s Lullaby
Sleep, O babe, for the red-bee hums
The silent twilight’s fall:
Aoibheall from the Grey Rock comes
To wrap the world in thrall.
A leanbhán O, my child, my joy,
My love and heart’s desire,
The crickets sing you lullaby
Beside the dying fire.
Dusk is drawn, and the Green Man’s Thorn
Is wreathed in rings of fog:
Siabhra sails his boat till morn
Upon the Starry Bog.
A leanbhán O, the paly moon
Hath brimmed her cusp in dew,
And weeps to hear the sad sleep-tune
I sing, O love, to you.
Faintly, sweetly, the chapel bell
Rings o’er the valley dim:
Tearmann’s peasant voices swell
In fragrant evening hymn.
A leanbhán O, the low bell rings
My little lamb to rest,
Till night is past and morning sings
Its music in your breast.
17
18
John Irvine
The Winter Night
Wind in the Wicklow hills tonight,
Wind in the hills, and rain;
The doors are closed and the curtain’s drawn
And winter’s here again.
The leaves are down, the trees are bare,
The streams are wide and deep,
And what’s to do for a sleepy head
But go to bed and sleep.
Delia Murphy
Connemara Cradle Song
On wings of the wind, o’er the dark rolling deep,
Angels are coming to watch o’er thy sleep,
Angels are coming to watch over thee,
So list to the wind coming over the sea.
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow,
Lean your head over and hear the wind blow.
On winds of the night, may your fury be crossed,
May no one that’s dear to our island be lost,
Blow the wind lightly, calm be the foam,
Shine the light brightly and guide them home.
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow,
Lean your head over and hear the wind blow.
The Currachs are sailing way out in the blue,
Laden with herrin’ of silvery hue,
Silver the herrin’ and silver the sea,
And soon they’ll be silver for baby and me.
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow,
Lean your head over and hear the wind blow.
19
20
The Currachs tomorrow will stand on the shore,
And daddy goes sailing, a-sailing no more,
The nets will be drying, the nets heaven blessed,
And safe in my arms, dear, contented he’ll rest.
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow,
Lean your head over and hear the wind blow.
21
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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.
from The Princess