Sleep

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;
    For I am weary, and am overwrought
    With too much toil, with too much care distraught,
    And with the iron crown of anguish crowned.
Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek,
    O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released
    I breathe again uninterrupted breath!
Ah, with what subtile meaning did the Greek
    Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast
    Whereof the greater mystery is death!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. Some of his famous works include "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Song of Hiawatha." Longfellow was one of the most popular American poets of his time and remains a significant figure in the canon of American literature.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Autumn

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

The Song Of Hiawatha - IV - Hiawatha And Mudjekeewis

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

The Evening Star

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

The Iron Pen

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

English

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Sleep

Thou drowsy god, whose blurred eyes, half awink
Muse on me, drifting out upon thy dreams,
I lave my soul as in enchanted streams
Where revelling satyrs pipe along the brink,
And tipsy with the melody they drink,
Uplift their dangling hooves, and down the beams
Of sunshine dance like motes. Thy languor seems
An ocean-depth of love wherein I sink
Like some fond Argonaut, right willingly,
Because of wooing eyes upturned to mine,
And siren-arms that coil their sorcery
About my neck, with kisses so divine,
The heavens reel above me, and the sea
Swallows and licks its wet lips over me.

James Whitcomb Riley

Sleep

Oh! is it Death that comes
To have a foretaste of the whole?
    To-night the planets and the stars
    Will glimmer through my window-bars
But will not shine upon my soul!

For I shall lie as dead
Though yet I am above the ground;
    All passionless, with scarce a breath,
    With hands of rest and eyes of death,
I shall be carried swiftly round.

Or if my life should break
The idle night with doubtful gleams,
    Through mossy arches will I go,
    Through arches ruinous and low,
And chase the true and false in dreams.

Why should I fall asleep?
When I am still upon my bed
    The moon will shine, the winds will rise
    And all around and through the skies
The light clouds travel o'er my head!

O busy, busy things,

George MacDonald

Sleep.

Come to me soft-eyed sleep,
With your ermine sandalled feet;
Press the pain from my troubled brow
With your kisses cool and sweet;
Lull me with slumbrous song,
Song of your clime, the blest,
While on my heavy eyelids
Your dewy fingers rest.

Come with your native flowers,
Heartsease and lotus bloom,
Enwrap my weary senses
With the cloud of their perfume;
For the whispers of thought tire me,
Their constant, dull repeat,
Like low waves throbbing, sobbing,
With endless, endless beat.

Marietta Holley

Ode II; To Sleep

Thou silent power, whose welcome sway
Charms every anxious thought away;
In whose divine oblivion drown'd,
Sore pain and weary toil grow mild,
Love is with kinder looks beguil'd,
And grief forgets her fondly-cherish'd wound;
Oh whither hast thou flown, indulgent god?
God of kind shadows and of healing dews,
Whom dost thou touch with thy Lethaean rod?
Around whose temples now thy opiate airs diffuse?
Lo, midnight from her starry reign
Looks awful down on earth and main.
The tuneful birds lie hush'd in sleep,
With all that crop the verdant food,
With all that skim the crystal flood,
Or haunt the caverns of the rocky steep.
No rushing winds disturb the tufted bowers;
No wakeful sound the moon-light valley knows,
Save where the brook its liquid murmur po...

Mark Akenside

Chimes

Sweet chimes! that in the loneliness of night
    Salute the passing hour, and in the dark
    And silent chambers of the household mark
    The movements of the myriad orbs of light!
Through my closed eyelids, by the inner sight,
    I see the constellations in the arc
    Of their great circles moving on, and hark!
    I almost hear them singing in their flight.
Better than sleep it is to lie awake
    O'er-canopied by the vast starry dome
    Of the immeasurable sky; to feel
The slumbering world sink under us, and make
    Hardly an eddy,--a mere rush of foam
    On the great sea beneath a sinking keel.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Sleeper

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!, and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

O, lady bright! can it be right,
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop,
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through ...

Edgar Allan Poe