On your eyelids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness:
Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep,
As is the difference betwixt day and night,
The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team
Begins his golden progress in the east.
O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with souDd of sweetest melody?
O polish'd perturbation! golden care!
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night! sleep with it now!
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
Snores out the watch of night.
This sleep is sound indeed, this is a sleep
That from this golden rigol hath divorc'd
So many English kings.
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep.
Fast asleep? It is no matter;
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber;
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.
Bid them come forth and hear me,
Or at their chamber-door I'll beat the drum
Till it cry sleep to death.
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid.
Methought I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep," the innocent sleep.
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
Shake off this downy sloop, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself!
He sleeps by day
More than the wild-cat.
Thou lead them thus,
Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,
Steal me awhile from mine own company.
But I pray you, let none of your people stir
me: I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou ow'dst yesterday.
I let fall the windows of mine eyes.
Thy eyes' windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, depriv'd of supple government,
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death.
Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain
Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again.
How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother
Sleep!
And on their lids * * *
The baby Sleep is pillowed.
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,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low.
Take thou of me, sweet pillowes, sweetest bed;
A chamber deafe of noise, and blind of light,
A rosie garland and a weary hed.
Thou hast been called, O Sleep, the friend of Woe,
But 'tis the happy who have called thee so.
For next to Death is Sleepe to be compared;
Therefore his house is unto his annext:
Here Sleepe, ther Ricbesse, and hel-gate them both betwext.
