What sweeter bit of verse can a mother repeat to the child she is hushing to sleep than this:
Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings—
Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes;
Sleep to the singing of motherbird swinging—
Swinging her nest where her little one lies.
In through the window a moonbeam comes—
Little gold moonbeam with misty wings;
All silently creeping, it asks: “Is he sleeping—
Sleeping and dreaming while mother sings?”
The stanzas are from “A Japanese Lullaby,” and are selected from a host of similarly dainty verses in Lullaby Land, by Eugene Field (Charles Scribner’s Sons).