Listen
Arrangement: Ian J. Watts / Mike Wilbury · Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks
Lyrics
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea.
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea.
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon and blow,
Blow him again to me,
While my little one,
While my pretty one, sleeps.
Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon.
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon.
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west,
Under the silver moon,
Sleep, my little one,
Sleep my pretty one, sleep.
Traditional lyrics — public domain. Arrangement © Singalongasong Band / ClassicRocks.
History & Background
History & Origin
"Sweet and Low" is a lullaby with words by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, taken from his 1847 poem-cycle "The Princess". Tennyson wrote it as a song within the larger work, designed to be sung by one of the characters. It was set to music by Joseph Barnby in 1863 and became immediately popular as a drawing-room song and a lullaby, its setting remaining the standard one to this day.
Tennyson's lyric is a small masterpiece of musical poetry. The opening phrase — "sweet and low, sweet and low" — is itself a piece of sound, an imitation of the wind over the sea. The poem addresses the western wind directly, asking it to carry the father home to his waiting wife and sleeping child. The "silver sails all out of the west" suggest a ship coming in on the moonlit tide — a beautiful image of anticipated return.
The lullaby exists in two time-frames simultaneously: the present, in which the child sleeps and the mother watches, and the expected future, in which the father arrives. This double perspective — the present peace and the anticipated reunion — gives the song its particular emotional depth.
Tennyson, Poet Laureate of Britain, was not principally a writer of children's verse, but this song has earned its permanent place in the lullaby canon.
