W. H. Auden's "Lullaby" is a lullaby for grown-ups—full of nuance and emotional sophistication—but it begins in a fairly traditional manner. Its opening line could come straight from a children's lullaby: "Lay your sleeping head, my love."
Conventionally, lullabies are meant to soothe children and urge them to sleep, and line 1 seems to fit that mold. Its trochaic tetrameter (four-beat, DUM-da DUM-da rhythm), which continues throughout the poem, echoes the meter of such popular lullabies as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."
But as the stanza continues, it soon becomes clear that this is no children's song. Several features mark this "Lullaby" as unusual:
- First, the speaker is not a parent singing to a child but one lover singing to another. (Though the lullaby conceit may imply that there's a significant age gap between them.)
- Second, it's addressed to a listener who's already "sleeping" and doesn't need to be further lulled. This quirk raises the possibility that the speaker is singing the lullaby, in part, for themselves, as they lie awake in the middle of the night.
- Finally, whereas the words of traditional lullabies tend to calm and reassure, this poem sprinkles a lot of anxiety into the mix.
Right after urging their lover to sleep soundly, the speaker acknowledges that the lover is only "Human" and they themselves are "faithless." (The phrase "faithless arm" is an example of synecdoche: the speaker's arm stands in, here, for their whole person.) Though the adjective "Human" is tenderly humanizing, it also makes clear that the speaker doesn't put their lover on a pedestal. Nor do they have any illusions about themselves: "faithless" implies that they will not stay sexually or emotionally faithful to their lover. This is not a romance that will last a lifetime, though it may be deeply fulfilling in the moment. It may even be, to outward appearances, a casual fling.
Even less reassuring is the metaphor that follows:
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, [...]
This language all but flies in the face of traditional lullabies, which tend to reassure kids that they are safe and protected. This speaker observes, instead, that children grow old and lose their "Individual beauty," as if "Time and fevers" were a continuous fire "burn[ing] away" their youth. "Fevers" here might refer to literal illnesses, or, figuratively, to feverish anxiety, ambition, and so on. The children's "Thoughtful[ness]" may be an element of their beauty, but it may also come at a cost to their beauty (anxious thoughts can cause stress, which causes the body to age faster). The speaker adds that "the grave / Proves the child ephemeral": in other words, death comes for everyone, and provides the ultimate proof that youth cannot last.
These sobering reflections place the poem in the carpe diem or memento mori tradition: that is, the tradition of literature that reminds readers they will someday die, and urges them to enjoy youth, love, and life while they can. In telling their lover to sleep in their arms, this speaker is also effectively saying: Let's embrace while our love and youth last, because nothing lasts forever.