Vigil
by James Whitcomb Riley

Close the book and dim the light,
I shall read no more tonight.
I know you are not sleepy, dear.
I will not go, sit by me here.
In the darkness and the silence of the watch I keep,
something in your presence so soothes me,
as when I first felt your hand touch my brow.
I’ve no other wish than you should fold your eyelids now.
Think not of sigh or tear,
as if God were sitting here.