Once a month Feminatronic combines two favourite things, electronic music and poetry, to bring an oasis of calm and this month is no exception as the mix is about Sleep.

Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings,

Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes;

Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging—

Swinging the nest where her little one lies.

Away out yonder I see a star,—

Silvery star with a tinkling song;

To the soft dew falling I hear it calling—

Calling and tinkling the night along.

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?”

Up from the sea there floats the sob

Of the waves that are breaking upon the shore,

As though they were groaning in anguish, and moaning—

Bemoaning the ship that shall come no more.

But sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings,—

Little blue pigeon with mournful eyes;

Am I not singing?—see, I am swinging—

Swinging the nest where my darling lies.

Japanese Lullaby – Eugene Field (1892)
 
 

 

Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming in the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

As thy softest limbs I feel
Smiles as of the morning steal
O’er thy cheek, and o’er thy breast
Where thy little heart doth rest.

O the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep!
When thy little heart doth wake,
Then the dreadful night shall break.

Cradle Song – William Blake (1757 – 1827)
 

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

A Dream within a Dream – Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849)