Sleep-Book | Page 2

oblivion?Reign over all!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
XVI.
Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound?Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught;?Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought?As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound?The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
XVII.
Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world,?A boundary between the things mis-named?Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,?And a wide realm of wild reality.?And dreams in their development have breath,?And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;?They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,?They take a weight from off our waking toils.?They do divide our being; they become?A portion of ourselves as of our time,?And look like heralds of eternity;--
Lord Byron.
XVIII.
O gentle Sleep! Do they belong to thee,?These twinklings of oblivion? Thou dost love?To sit in meekness, like the brooding Dove,?A captive never wishing to be free.
William Wordsworth.
XIX.
O soft embalmer of the still midnight!?Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,?Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light,?Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;?O soothest Sleep! if so it pleases thee, close,?In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,?Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws?Around my bed its lulling charities;?Then save me, or the passed day will shine?Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;?Save me from curious conscience, that still lords?Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;?Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,?And seal the hushed casket of my soul.
John Keats.
XX.
Sleep, that giv'st what Life denies,?Shadowy bounties and supreme,?Bring the dearest face that flies?Following darkness like a dream!
Andrew Lang.
XXI.
I have a lady as dear to me?As the westward wind and shining sea,?As breath of spring to the verdant lea,?As lover's songs and young children's glee.
Swiftly I pace thro' the hours of light,?Finding no joy in the sunshine bright,?Waiting 'till moon and far stars are white,?Awaiting the hours of silent night.
Swiftly I fly from the day's alarms,?Too sudden desires, false joys and harms,?Swiftly I fly to my loved one's charms,?Praying the clasp of her perfect arms.
Her eyes are wonderful, dark and deep,?Her raven tresses a midnight steep,?But, ah, she is hard to hold and keep--?My lovely lady, my lady Sleep!
Leolyn Louise Everett.
XXII.
Visit her, gentle Sleep! With wings of healing,?And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,?May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,?Silent as tho' they watched the sleeping Earth!?With light heart may she rise,?Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,?Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice.
Samuel T. Coleridge.
XXIII.
Sleep! king of gods and men!?Come to my call again,?Swift over field and fen,
Mountain and deep:
Come, bid the waves be still;?Sleep, streams on height and hill;?Beasts, birds and snakes, thy will
Conquereth, Sleep!
Come on thy golden wings,?Come ere the swallow sings,?Lulling all living things,
Fly they or creep!
Come with thy leaden wand,?Come with thy kindly hand,?Soothing on sea or land
Mortals that weep
Come from the cloudy west,?Soft over brain and breast,?Bidding the Dragon rest,
Come to me, Sleep!
Andrew Lang.
XXIV.
Sleep, death without dying--living without life.
Edwin Arnold.
XXV.
She sleeps; her breathings are not heard?In palace-chambers far apart,?The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd?That he upon her charmed heart.
She sleeps; on either hand upswells?The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest;?She sleeps, nor dreams but ever dwells?A perfect form in perfect rest.
Alfred Tennyson.
XXVI.
The hours are passing slow,?I hear their weary tread?Clang from the tower and go?Back to their kinsfolk dead.?Sleep! death's twin brother dread!?Why dost thou scorn me so??The wind's voice overhead?Long wakeful here I know,?And music from the steep?Where waters fall and flow.?Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
All sounds that might bestow?Rest on the fever'd bed,?All slumb'rous sounds and low?Are mingled here and wed,?And bring no drowsihed.?Shy dreams flit to and fro?With shadowy hair dispread;?With wistful eyes that glow?And silent robes that sweep.?Thou wilt not hear me; no??Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
What cause hast them to show?Of sacrifice unsped??Of all thy slaves below?I most have labored?With service sung and said;?Have cull'd such buds as blow,?Soft poppies white and red,?Where thy still gardens grow,?And Lethe's waters weep.?Why, then, art thou my foe??Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
Prince, ere the dark be shred?By golden shafts, ere low?And long the shadows creep:?Lord of the wand of lead,?Soft footed as the snow,?Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep!
Andrew Lang.
XXVII.
I have loved wind and light,?And the bright sea,?But, holy and most secret Night,?Not as I love and have loved thee.
God, like all highest things,?Hides light in shade,?And in the night his visitings?To sleep and dreams are clearliest made.
Arthur Symons.
XXVIII.
The peace of a wandering sky,?Silence, only the cry?Of the crickets, suddenly still,?A bee on the window sill,?A bird's wing, rushing and soft,?Three flails that tramp in the loft,?Summer murmuring?Some sweet, slumberous thing,?Half asleep:
Arthur Symons.
XXIX.
Only a little holiday of sleep,?Soft sleep, sweet sleep; a little soothing psalm?Of slumber from thy sanctuaries of calm,?A little sleep--it matters not how deep;?A little falling feather from thy wing,?Merciful Lord,--is it so great a thing?
Richard Le Gallienne.
XXX.
A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by?One after