Sleep-Book

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sleep-Book, by Various
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Title: Sleep-Book
Some of the Poetry of Slumber
Author: Various
Release Date: September 3, 2005 [EBook #16637]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLEEP-BOOK ***
Produced by Pat Saumell and Chuck Greif
SLEEP-BOOK
SOME OF THE POETRY OF SLUMBER
COLLECTED BY
LEOLYN LOUISE EVERETT
NEW YORK
THE WATKINS COMPANY
1910
Three hundred and twenty copies of this book have been printed on hand-made Van Gelder paper, for The Watkins Company, at the press of Styles & Cash New York, and type distributed.
This book is No.
To
ETHEL DU FRé HOUSTON
who has brought the joy and beauty of dream into so many lives
SLEEP-BOOK
I.
Peace, peace, thou over-anxious, foolish heart,?Rest, ever-seeking soul, calm, mad desires,?Quiet, wild dreams--this is the time of sleep.?Hold her more close than life itself. Forget?All the excitements of the day, forget?All problems and discomforts. Let the night?Take you unto herself, her blessed self.?Peace, peace, thou over-anxious, foolish heart,?Rest, ever-seeking soul, calm, mad desires,?Quiet, wild dreams--this is the time of sleep.
Leolyn Louise Everett.
II.
Sleep, softly-breathing god! his downy wing?Was fluttering now.
Samuel T. Coleridge.
I lay in slumber's shadowy vale
Samuel T. Coleridge.
III.
And more to lulle him in his slumber soft,?A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down?And ever-drizzling raine upon the loft,?Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne?Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swowne.?No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,?As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne,?Might there be heard; but carelesse Quiet lyes?Wrapt in eternal! silence farre from enimyes.
Edmund Spenser.
IV.
The waters murmuring,?With such cohort as they keep?Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep.?Il Penseroso.
John Milton.
V.?Ye spotted snakes with double tongue,?Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;?Newts and blind-worms do no wrong,?Come not near our fairy queen.?Philomel, with melody?Sing in our sweet lullaby,?Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby;?Never harm.?Nor spell nor charm,?Come our lovely lady nigh?So goodnight with lullaby.
William Shakespeare.
VI.
Sleep, Silence child, sweet father of soft rest,?Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings,?Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,?Sole comforter of minds with grief oppressed;?Lo, by thy charming rod all breathing things?Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possessed.
William Drummond of Hawthornden.
VII.
Come, Sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving?Lock me in delight awhile;?Let some pleasing dreams beguile?All my fancies; that from thence?I may feel an influence,?All my powers of care bereaving!
Though but a shadow, but a sliding?Let me know some little joy!?We that suffer long annoy?Are contented with a thought?Through an idle fancy wrought;?O let my joys have some abiding!
John Fletcher.
VIII.
But still let Silence trew night-watches keepe,?That sacred Peace may in assurance rayne,?And tymely Sleep, when it is time to sleep,?May pour his limbs forth on your pleasant playne;?The whiles an hundred little winged loves?Like divers-fethered doves,?Shall fly and flutter round about your bed.
Edmund Spenser.
IX.
Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,?Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose?On this afflicted prince; fall like a cloud?In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud?Or painful to his slumbers,--easy, sweet?And as a purling stream, thou son of Night,?Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain?Like hollow murmuring wind or silver rain,?Into this prince gently, oh gently, slide?And kiss him into slumbers like a bride.
John Fletcher.
X.
God hath set?Labor and rest, as day and night, to men?Successive, and the timely dew of sleep?Now falling with soft, slumberous weight inclines?Our eyelids.
John Milton.
XI.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast'?Would I were sleep and peace so sweet to rest
William Shakespeare.
The innocent sleep,?Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, t?The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,?Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,?Chief nourisher in life's feast.
William Shakespeare.
XII.
Come, Sleep. O, Sleep! The certain knot of peace,?The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,?The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,?The indifferent judge between the high and low.
Sir Philip Sidney.
XIII.
Close thine eyes, and sleep secure;?Thy soul is safe, thy body sure.?He that guards thee, he that keeps,?Never slumbers, never sleeps.?A quiet conscience in the breast?Has only peace, has only rest.?The wisest and the mirth of kings?Are out of tune unless she sings:?Then close thine eyes in peace and sleep secure,?No sleep so sweet as thine, no rest so sure.
Charles I, King of England.
XIV.
Oh, Brahma, guard in sleep?The merry lambs and the complacent kine,?The flies below the leaves and the young mice?In the tree roots, and all the sacred flocks?Of red flamingo; and my love Vijaya,?And may no restless fay, with fidget finger?Trouble his sleeping; give him dreams of me.
William B Yeats.
XV.
Solemnly, mournfully,?Dealing its dole,?The Curfew Bell?Is beginning to toll.
Cover the embers,?And put out the light;?Toil comes with morning,?And rest with the night.
Dark grow the windows,?And quenched is the fire;?Sound fades into silence,--?All footsteps retire.
No voice in the chambers,?No sound in the hall!?Sleep and