A Cradle Song by Padraic Colum is a popular poem in Ireland. Readers of the Irish Times voted it inside Ireland’s 100 favourite poems in 1999.
Ireland’s 100 favourite poems
The poem is about a newborn baby and the men in the family returning to see him after a labouring in the field all day.
A Cradle Song
O men from the fields,
Come gently within.
Tread softly, softly
O men coming in!
Mavourneen is going
From me and from you,
Where Mary will fold him
With mantle of blue!
From reek of the smoke
And cold of the floor
And the peering of things
Across the half-door.
O men of the fields,
Soft, softly come thro’
Mary puts round him
Her mantle of blue.
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