Poetry and Sleep

Sleep as Satisfaction

Night and Day
Robert Louis Stevenson

When the golden day is done,
Through the closing portal,
Child and garden, flower and sun,
Vanish all things mortal.

As the blinding shadows fall,
As the rays diminish,
Under evening’s cloak, they all
Roll away and vanish.

Garden darkened, daisy shut,
Child in bed, they slumber—
Glow-worm in the highway rut,
Mice among the lumber

In the darkness houses shine,
Parents move with candles;
Till, on all, the night divine
Turns the bedroom handles.

Till at last the day begins
In the east a-breaking,
In the hedges and the whins
Sleeping birds a-waking

In the darkness shapes of things,
Houses, trees and heges,
Clearer grow; and sparrow’s wings
Beat on window ledges.

These shall wake the yawning maid;
She the door shall open—
Finding dew on garden glade
And the morning broken.

There my garden grows again
Green and rosy painted,
As at eve behind the pane
From my eyes it fainted.

Just as it was shut away,
Toy-lie in the even,
Here I see it glow with day
Under glowing heaven.

Every path and every plot,
Every bush of roses,
Every blue forget-me-not
Where the dew reposes,

“Up!” they cry, “the day is come
On the smiling valleys:
We have beat the morning drum;
Playmate, join your allies!”

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The Sea of Sleep
Norman MacCaig

Some float gently ashore.  They lie
with their shoulders on the sand
till the sea ebbs.

Others splash violently through the shallows
and collapse panting
at high water mark.

I, king dolphin of the sea of sleep,
leap ashore—rising in air as dolphin,
landing as man.

I visit the huts of the natives
and eat their strange foods, and
keep looking out to sea

where this lumpish man was frolicsome
in a school of dreams—black hoops, submerging, then
slithering up into the light and scattering it.

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Thon Nicht
Donald Campbell

D’ye mind thon nicht?
Thon nicht langsyne
in the winter of our bairnheid?
When the muckle mune
flourished with spendour
in the naked silence of a star-thrang lift
and the snaw
blintered doucely on ilka step and stane?

Hou strang was the world thon nicht!
Hou grand!  The sharpening cauld
se aa our landscapes straight
in a richt perspective.  The clear sicht
we got frae the wind-purged dark
shed a fresh licht on the thrawn horizon
of our raw, unsiccar dreams.

Gin ony chiel had tellt us then
of aa the ferlies and the failures
that we’d yet to face
we’d laughed—and gin we’d guessed ourselves
would we hae kent thon nicht
thon bonnie, bonnie nicht
when eternity leamed in the nearhand dawn?

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A clear midnight
Walt Whitman

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

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A Lyre-wake Dirge
Traditional

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Every night and alle;
Fire and fleet, and candle lighte,
And Christe receive thy saule.

When thou from hence away are paste,
Every night and alle;
To Whinny-muir thou comest at laste;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gavest hosen and shoo,
Every night and alle;
Sit thee down, and put them on;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If hosen and shoon thou ne’er gavest nane,
Every night an alle;
The whinnies shall pricke thee to the bare bane;
And Christe receive thy saule.

From Whinny-muir when thou mayst passé,
Every night and alle;
To Brigg o’Dread thou comest at laste;
And Christe receive thy saule.

From Brigg o’Dread when thou mayst passé,
Every night and alle;
To purgatory fire thou comest at laste;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gavest meat or drink,
Every night and alle;
The fire shall never make thee shrinke;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If meate or drinke thou never gavest nane,
Every night and alle;
The fire will burn thee to the bare bane;
And Christe receive thy saule.

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Every night and alle;
Fired and fleet, and candle lighte,
And Christe receive thy saule.

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Lullaby
W.B. Yeats

Beloved, may your sleep be sound
That have found it where you fed.
What were all the world’s alarms
To Mighty Paris when he found
Sleep upon a golden bed
That first dawn in Helen’s arms?

Sleep, beloved, such a sleep
As did that wild Tristram know
When, the potion’s work being done,
Roe could run or doe could leap
Under oak and beechen bough,
Roe could leap or doe could run;

Such a sleep and sound as fell
Upon Eurotas’ grassy bank
When the holy bird, that there
Accomplished his predestined will,
From the limbs of Leda sank
But not from her protecting care.

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“For there’s Bishops’ Teign”
John Keats

                        VI
Asleep!  O sleep a little while, white pearl!
And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee,
And let me call Heaven’s blessing on thine eyes,
And let me breathe into the happy air,
That doth enfold and touch thee all about,
Vows of my slavery, my giving up,
My sudden adoration, my great love!

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How Sleep the Brave
William Collins

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country’s wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

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Care-charming Sleep
John Fletcher

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.

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Astrophel and Stella XXXIX
Sir Philip Sidney

Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-lace of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,
Th’ indifferent judge between the high and low.
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw:
O make in me those civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light,
A rosy garland and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella’s image see.

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