A Christmas Lullaby

I've hesitated to read specifically sacred poems aloud here, not for fear offending anyone, but simply because I am not myself numbered among the believers. Yet Christmas time is full of music and poetry and traditions that I specially love. Even without believing in the story of Nativity, I can only admire the beauties it has inspired, among them this little poem of William Blake's, "A Cradle Song," written presumably while lost in happy contemplation of his own sleeping child. I read it tonight then for all the beautiful babies that come my way every day in the bookstore, for those I know and those I don't. If, as an unbeliever, I still believe in blessings, these are they.