A Child Asleep Poem by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

I looked for him everywhere
Because I wanted him to play;
And then I found him on his bed
Asleep, but it was day.


His eyes were shut behind the lids--
He couldn't lift them up to see.
And I looked at him very long,
And something in him looked at me.


And he was something like a cat
That is asleep, or like a dog;
Or like a thing that's in the woods
All day behind a log.


'And then I was afraid of it,
Of something that was sleeping there.
I didn't even say his name,
But I came down the stair.'