TO A SLEEPING BEAUTY

Dear daughter ,

I tiptoed to your room tonight and I looked down at you smiling in your sleep. You were so lovely my heart nearly broke, and I thought how very much like sleeping beauty a little girl is when I tuck you in at night. I never know how old you'll be when you wake. One evening you crawl on your dad's lap and throw your arms around his neck; the next morning you might be much too grownup for that sort of thing. You're so quickly approachin' my awkward age. Too young to drive a car and yet too old to be carried into the house half asleep on daddy's shoulder. I have a secret that I've never told you Sleeping Beauty. You're going on a very exciting trip. You'll travel from yesterday all the way to tomorrow. It's a rapid journey and you'll travel light leavin' behind your measles, mumps, freckles, bumps ,bubblegum, and me. I promise not to feel too hurt when you discover that the world is more important than your daddy's lap. Yesterday you were blue-jeaned and pig-tailed the neighborhood's best tree-climber; tomorrow you'll be blue-organdie and ponny-tailed and you'll view the world from a loftier perch, a pair of high-heel shoes. Yesterday you could mend a doll's broken leg with a hug; tomorrow you'll be able to break a young man's heart with a kiss, Ha ha! yesterday you could get lost one aisle away from me in a supermarket. Now I have to worry about losin' you down another aisle to some strange young man. You see just at the point where your growing pains stop mine begin. Yesterday you were kind of a pain in the neck when you were around. Tomorrow you'll be an ache in my heart when you're not. Tomorrow you'll lay aside your jumprope and tie up the telephone lines and that little boy that used to push you in the mud, well he'll fight to set out a dance with you. The clock upstairs is countin' the minutes for you and the sky upstairs is savin' its brightest stars, and the sun is waitin' with its shinest day. Oh I can't expect you to live in a dollhouse forever. Sooner or later the butterfly sheds its cocoon and the smallest bird must try its wings. But when you grow up and out of my arms when you finally get too big for my shirts I'll still recall how you used to scatter dust and dolls, and partially through every room in the house but you spread sunshine too. The dust is settled your mom picked up the dolls. But the sunshine will always fill the corners of our hearts. So here I am talkin' in your sleep. Because well if you saw this look on my face you'd laugh. And if I spoke with this lump in my throat I'd cry. Yeah honey when I looked at you tonight you were a Sleeping Beauty. So I tiptoed over and I kissed you, you didn't wake up I knew you wouldn't. According to the legend only the handsome young prince can open your eyes. And I'm just the father of a future bride. So you sleep on pretty thing, tomorrow you'll awake and you'll be a young lady. And you won't even realize that you've changed courses in the middle of a dream. But you might notice this little change in me, I look a little different somehow a little sadder a little wiser but a whole lot richer. Tonight I kissed a princess and I feel like a king.

sung by: Jimmy Dean