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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A sleep
Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing.
John Keats.
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. There is
The hush of some great spirit o'er the earth.
Here, in the silence earth and sky are met
And merged into infinity. Oh, God
Of all, Thou who beholdest Destiny
As simple, Thou who understandest life
From birth to re-birth, who knows all our souls,
Grant her Thy perfect benediction, rest.
Leolyn Louise Everett.