The speaker, "I," addresses a new baby, "you," throughout this poem.
The baby is born and begins screaming. The speaker reflects on how the baby looks and sounds in its first moments of life.
Soon the family watches the baby in its bed, a form of viewership that strikes the speaker as something similar to viewing a statue at an art museum.
At home, the speaker stays awake most of the night, listening to the baby breathing. Once the baby starts to cry, the speaker (who we now know is the baby's mother, judging from the fact that she's wearing a Victorian nightgown), rushes out to take care of it.
She watches as the morning starts to color the windowpanes, and then marvels at how the baby has begun to coo – a form of "singing" that the speaker likens to "vowels" flying up like "balloons."