Baby's Lullaby, by Bertha Roberts Wilkinson

My daughter and my new granddaughter

Baby’s Lullaby

Softly the night shadows steal across the sky,

Back to their home nests, the birds swiftly fly.

The flower are folding their petals so soft.

The sea is the only one loud and storm tossed.

But. baby of mine, the storm will subside

And the splashing will cease with the ebb of the tide.

So Mother will gently rock baby to rest

Then send you to sleep with the sun in the west.

Then the moon will shine on with her gentle light

To guide you my darling on Fairy Land’s flight.

The angels will take you and sing to you sweet,

Then bring you back home in their magic fleet.

When Mother will take you once more in her arms

You will tell her the wonders, the love and the charms.

How they showed them to you through wonderful dreams

Then brought you back safely from out of your dreams.

This poem was written by my grandmother, Bertha Louise (Roberts) Wilkinson (1897 - 1990).  My grandmother attended school only until about age 12 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England.  She had to go to work at age 12 as an under nurse to a children's nanny in a vicarage in Leeds.  She immigrated to Massachusetts, through Ellis Island, in 1915.  She didn't marry my grandfather, Donald Munroe Wilkinson (1895 - 1977) until 1926, when she was nearly 30 years old.  In an oral history of her life she recorded on tape she said that she was anxious to marry and have children, but her parents were ill and she had to care for them.  Her first baby, my Uncle Robert, was born after her father had died and the same year her mother passed.  My father was born when she was nearly 40 years old. 

Bertha Wilkinson

She must have loved being a mother to her own babies after being a nursemaid.  I'm sure she would have loved to meet her great great granddaughter, my own grandchild, pictured above.  Grammy Bertha wrote many poems, and I have posted them here for Bill West's Genealogy Poetry Challenge.  This year is the 7th annual poetry challenge.  You can find more information at this link: 
http://westinnewengland.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-seventh-annual-great-genealogy.html   




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Published under a Creative Commons License
Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Baby's Lullaby, by Bertha Roberts Wilkinson", Nutfield Genealogy, posted November 16, 2015, (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/11/babys-lullaby-by-bertha-roberts.html: accessed [access date]).