recorded · 1903 · north noemic · same back room
sleep, larger one — the day is folded. the stove is out. the door is open. the cat went out. the bread is risen. the moon is no one's. don't pretend. sleep, larger one — the world will not. but you have done what could be done.
the second of the pair. learned later, when the child had stopped sleeping easily and the same voice was needed for the same room, but with the small adjustments grown people require. the lines mirror the first lullaby by one degree of resignation; the rhythm is the same, the pat a slower one.
by tradition it is sung to oneself, in the small hour, when no one else will, and the breath is doing the work of two.