TO SLEEP

BY JOHN KEATS

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;

O soothest Sleep! if so it please 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 passèd 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 oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.

KIND SLEEP

BY ISABEL FISKE CONANT

Slip into sleep as easy as a gown
The soft and clinging draperies of dream
The under-sea-green trail that down and down,
Sinks rhythmically with a sunless gleam,—

Then wake as gradually as lilies rise

Spreading wet, yielding petals, new to suns,

To waterless, light element of skies,
Unoceanic, and yet native ones.

Slip into death as birds drop down the side
Of rugged canyons that they never fear,
As wings upon the blue that, rising, ride,
Then waken to a better time of year.
Tossing away a far too long November,
Returning to the April you remember.

FOR SLEEP WHEN OVERTIRED OR WORRIED

BY SARAH N. CLEGHORN

Cares and anxieties,

I roll you all up in a bundle together;

I carry you across the meadow to the river.

River, I am throwing in a bundle of cares and anxieties. Float it away to the sea!

Now I come slowly back across the meadow,

Slowly into the house,

Slowly up to my room.

The night is quiet and cool;

The lights are few and dim;

The sounds are drowsy and far away and melting

into each other;

Melting into the night.

Sleep comes creeping nearer, creeping nearer;

It goes over my head like a wave.

I sleep. . . I rest . . . I sleep.

SLEEP

BY SOPHIE JEwett

Dear gray-eyed Angel, wilt thou come to-night? Spread the soft shadow of thy sheltering wings, And banish every hint of thought and light,

And all the clamoring crowd of waking things? Wilt thou bend low above wide weary eyes, As o'er the worn world bend the tireless skies?

COME, BLESSÈD SLEEP

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Come, blessèd Sleep, most full, most perfect, come.
Come, sleep, if so I may forget the whole;
Forget my body and forget my soul,

Forget how long life is and troublesome.
Come, happy sleep, to soothe my heart or numb,
Arrest my weary spirit or control:

Till light be dark to me from pole to pole,
And winds and echoes and low songs be dumb.
Come, sleep, and lap me into perfect calm,

Lap me from all the world and weariness. Come, secret sleep, with thine unuttered psalm, Come, heavy dreamless sleep, and close and press Upon mine eyes thy fingers dropping balm.

THE NIGHT

BY HILAIRE BELLOC

Most Holy Night, that still dost keep
The keys of all the doors of sleep,
To me when my tired eyelids close
Give thou répose.

And let the far lament of them
That chaunt the dead day's requiem
Make in my ears, who wakeful lie,
Soft lullaby.

Let them that guard the hornèd Moon
By my bedside their memories croon.
So shall I have new dreams and blest
In my brief rest.

Fold thy great wings about my face, Hide day-dawn from my resting-place, And cheat me with thy false delight, Most Holy Night.

THE WHITE PATERNOSTER

(Old Rhyme)

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

Bless the bed that I lie on!
Four corners to my bed,
Five angels there lie spread;