Sleep-Book | Page 3

one; the sound of rain, and bees?Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,?Smooth fields, white sheets of water and pure sky?I have thought of all by turns and yet do lie?Sleepless!

Come, blessed barrier between day and day.?Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
William Wordsworth.
XXXI.
Sleep is a reconciling,
A rest that peace begets;?Does not the sun rise smiling?When fair at eve he sets'
Anonymous.
XXXII.
The cloud-shadows of midnight possess their own?repose,?The weary winds are silent or the moon is in the?deep;?Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean?knows;
Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its?appointed sleep.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
XXXIII.
We lay?Stretched upon fragrant heath and lulled by sound?Of far-off torrents charming the still night,?To tired limbs and over-busy thoughts?Inviting sleep and soft forgetfulness.
William Wordsworth.
XXXIV.
There is sweet music here that softer falls?Than petals from blown roses on the grass,?Or night-dews on still waters between walls?Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;?Music that gentlier on the spirit lies?Than tired eye-lids upon tired eyes;?Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep,?And thro' the mass the ivies creep,?And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep.?And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
Alfred Tennyson.
XXXV.
I went into the deserts of dim sleep--?That world which, like an unknown wilderness,?Bounds this with its recesses wide and deep
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
XXXVI.
Oh, Morpheus, my more than love, my life,?Come back to me, come back to me! Hold out?Your wonderful, wide arms and gather me?Again against your breast. I lay above?Your heart and felt its breathing firm and slow?As waters that obey the moon and lo,?Rest infinite was mine and calm. My soul?Is sick for want of you. Oh, Morpheus,?Heart of my weary heart, come back to me!
Leolyn Louise Everett.
XXXVII.
Lips?Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath?Of innocent dreams arose.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
XXXVIII.
A late lark twitters in the quiet skies;?And from the west,?Where the sun, his day's work ended,?Lingers in content,?There falls on the old, gray city?An influence luminous and serene,?A shining peace.
The smoke ascends?In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires?Shine, and are changed. In the valley?Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,?Closing his benediction,?Sinks, and the darkening air?Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night--?Night with her train of stars?And her great gift of sleep.
William Ernest Henley.
XXXIX.
Oh, Sleep! it is a gentle thing?Beloved from pole to pole!?To Mary Queen the praise be given!?She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,?That slid into my soul.
Samuel T. Coleridge.
XL.
What is more gentle than a wind in summer??What is more soothing than the pretty hummer?That stays one moment in an open flower,?And buzzes cheerily from bower to bower??What is more tranquil than a musk rose blowing?In a green island, far from all men's knowing??More healthful than the leanness of dales??More secret than a nest of nightingales??More serene than Cordelia's countenance??More full of visions than a high romance??What, but thee Sleep? Soft closer of our eyes!?Low murmurer of tender lullabies!?Light hoverer around our happy pillows!?Wreather of poppy buds and weeping willows!?Silent entangler of a beauty's tresses!?Most happy listener! when the morning blesses?Thee for enlivening all the cheerful eyes?That glance so brightly at the new sun-rise.
John Keats.
XLI.
My sleep had been embroidered with dim dreams,?My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o'er?With flowers, and stirring shades of baffled beams.
John Keats.
XLII.
Sleep is a blessed thing. All my long life?I have known this, its value infinite?To man, its symbol of the perfect peace?That marks eternity, its marvellous?Relief from all the vanities and wounds,?The little battles and unrest of soul?That we call life.
Sleep is a blessed thing,?Doubly it has been taught me. All the time?I cannot have you, all the heart-sick days?Of utter yearning, of eternal ache?Of longing, longing for the sight of you,?Fade and dissolve at night and you are mine,?At least in dreams, at least in blessed dreams.
Leolyn Louise Everett.
XLIII.
Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest,?In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay?Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd?Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away;?Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day,?Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain,?Clasp'd like a missal where swart Paynims pray;?Blended alike from sunshine and from rain,?As though a rose could shut and be a bud again.
John Keats.
XLIV.
O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,?That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind?'Till it is hush'd and smooth! O unconfin'd?Restraint! imprisoned liberty! great key?To golden palaces, strange ministrelsy,?Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves,?Echoing grottos, full of tumbling waves?And moonlight, aye, to all the mazy world?Of silvery enchantment!--who, upfurl'd?Beneath thy drowsy wing a triple hour?But renovates and lives?
John Keats.
XLV.
A sleep?Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing.
John Keats.
XLVI.
Now is the blackest hour of the long night,?The soul of midnight. Now, the pallid stars?Shine in the highest silver and the wind?That creepeth chill across the sleeping world?Holdeth no hint of morning. I look out?Into the glory of the night with tired,?Wide, sleepless eyes and think of you.