Sleep

A poem by Violet Nicolson, Lawrence Hope, Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (1865 – 1904)

There is something so beseeching in the attitude of sleep,

A pathetic resignation, most appealing to the heart. .

There must surely be some secret that the eyes in slumber keep,

Which the lips, on their awakening, could not, if they would, impart.

See yon Slave from Sus, recumbent, with his ebon arms outspread

On the marigolds he crushes to a sheet of golden flowers,

How the mystery of dreaming lends a halo to his head,

And exalts him to a level never reached in waking hours.

In the form that lies impassive, while the sea-wind comes and goes

And uplifts his rags in pity, on its cool refreshing breath

There is something so prophetic of the Last and Great Repose:

Sleep has borrowed, in its quietude, the Dignity of Death.

Though his parted lips are wordless, though he breathes no uttered prayer

Yet his silence seems imploring “Let me deem the noonday night,

For my dreams are velvet-breasted, and they shelter me from care,

I entreat thee not to wake me to the sorrows of the light.”

Ah, sleep on, in peace, my brother, to awaken when thou wi1t,

From the dreams that treat thee kindly, and the rest that sets thee free.

With the wild fig for thy canopy, the marigolds thy quilt,

And, to serve thee for a lullaby, the thunder of the Sea’

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Poems in English 

• Warm are the Still and Lucky Miles by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Voltaire At Ferney by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Underneath an Abject Willow by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• This Lunar Beauty by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• They Wondered Why the Fruit had Been Forbidden by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Waters by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Wanderer by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Two by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Riddle by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Quest by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Quest XII (Vocation) by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Novelist by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Labyrinth by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Hidden Law by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Geography of the House by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Dream by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• The Common Life by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Thanksgiving for a Habitat by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Taller To-day by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)
• Song Of The Master And Boatswain by W H Auden by Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H. Auden)

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