The Angel’s Whisper

Samuel Lover (1797–1868)

[In Ireland they have a pretty fancy that when a child smiles in its sleep it is “talking with angels.”]

A BABY was sleeping;

Its mother was weeping;

For her husband was far on the wild raging sea;

And the tempest was swelling

Round the fisherman’s dwelling;

And she cried, “Dermot, darling! O come back to me!”

Her beads while she numbered

The baby still slumbered,

And smiled in her face as she bended her knee:

“O, blessed be that warning,

My child, thy sleep adorning,—

For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.

“And while they are keeping

Bright watch o’er thy sleeping,

O, pray to them softly, my baby, with me,—

And say thou wouldst rather

They ’d watch o’er thy father!

For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.”

The dawn of the morning

Saw Dermot returning,

And the wife wept with joy her babe’s father to see;

And closely caressing

Her child with a blessing,

Said, “I knew that the angels were whispering with thee.”