sang the grandmother, and the wind wafted back the reply—
"If it cry for food, I will feed it with copious dews;
If it wish to sleep, I will rock its cradle with a gentle breeze."
How devoid of all sentiment our Englished version of the same tale reads.
"Hush-a-bye, baby, on a tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
Down comes the baby and cradle and all."
No wonder this purposeless lullaby is satirised in the orthodox libretto of Punch's Opera or the Dominion of Fancy, for Punch, having sung it, throws the child out of the window.
The poetic instinct of the German mother is rich in expression, her voice soothing and magnetic as she sways her babe to and fro to the melody of—
"Sleep, baby, sleep!
Thy father tends the sheep,
Thy mother shakes the branches small,
Whence happy dreams in showers fall.
Sleep, baby, sleep!
"Sleep, baby, sleep!
The sky is full of sheep,
The stars the lambs of heaven are,
For whom the shepherd moon doth care.
Sleep, baby, sleep!"[F]
The lullaby of the Black Guitar, told by the Grimm brothers in their German fairy tales, gives us the same thought.