The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSleep-Book

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSleep-BookThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Sleep-BookCompiler: Leolyn Louise EverettRelease date: September 3, 2005 [eBook #16637]Most recently updated: December 12, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Pat Saumell and Chuck Greif*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLEEP-BOOK ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Sleep-BookCompiler: Leolyn Louise EverettRelease date: September 3, 2005 [eBook #16637]Most recently updated: December 12, 2020Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Pat Saumell and Chuck Greif

Title: Sleep-Book

Compiler: Leolyn Louise Everett

Compiler: Leolyn Louise Everett

Release date: September 3, 2005 [eBook #16637]Most recently updated: December 12, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Pat Saumell and Chuck Greif

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLEEP-BOOK ***

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.

Sleep, softly-breathing god! his downy wing

Was fluttering now.

Samuel T. Coleridge.

I lay in slumber's shadowy vale

Samuel T. Coleridge.

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.

The waters murmuring,

With such cohort as they keep

Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep.

Il Penseroso.

John Milton.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sleep, that giv'st what Life denies,

Shadowy bounties and supreme,

Bring the dearest face that flies

Following darkness like a dream!

Andrew Lang.

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,


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