Leave Your Sleep

In 2010, Natalie Merchant released Leave Your Sleep, which is her first album after a 7-year break from her music career.  She had taken that time to raise her daughter and was inspired by the poetry she read with her.  Leave Your Sleep is an enchanting collection of songs made from children's poems from the 19th and 20th centuries.  I am so fascinated by the words of these poems, and the music is alternately haunting, wistful, and comforting.  It conjures up so many feelings I had as a child.

The full text of the poems can be found on Natalie's website. I had to quote one of the poems here.

Crying, My Little One
by Christina Rossetti
Crying, my little one, footsore and weary?
Fall asleep, pretty one, warm on my shoulder:
I must tramp on through the winter night dreary,
While the snow falls on me colder and colder.

You are my one, and I have not another;
Sleep soft, my darling, my trouble and treasure;
Sleep warm and soft in the arms of your mother,
Dreaming of pretty things, dreaming of pleasure.