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
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 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.