FAIR is the castle up on the hill―― Hushaby, sweet my own! The night is fair and the waves are still, And the wind is singing to you and me In this lowly home beside the sea―― Hushaby, sweet my own! On yonder hill is store of wealth―― Hushaby, sweet my own! And revellers drink to a little one’s health; But you and I bide night and day For the other love that has sailed away―― Hushaby, sweet my own! See not, dear eyes, the forms that creep Ghostlike, O my own! Out of the mists of the murmuring deep; Oh, see them not and make no cry, ’Till the angels of death have passed us by―― Hushaby, sweet my own! Ah, little they reck of you and me―― Hushaby, sweet my own! In our lonely home beside the sea; They seek the castle up on the hill, And there they will do their ghostly will―― Hushaby, O my own! Here by the sea, a mother croons “Hushaby, sweet my own;” In yonder castle a mother swoons While the angels go down to the misty deep, Bearing a little one fast asleep―― Hushaby, sweet my own! ¹ From “A Little Book of Western Verse” (1889). Copyrighted by Eugene Field, and published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. * * * * * A DUTCH LULLABY.¹ 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 to come to fish for the herring-fish That live in this beautiful sea: Nets of silver and gold have we,” Said Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. The old moon laughed and sung a song, And 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 afeared are we”―― So cried the stars to the fishermen three, Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. 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. ’Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed As if it could not be; And some folks thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed Of sailing that beautiful sea. But I shall name you the fishermen three: Wynken, Blynken, And Nod.