Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Sleep
Blessed be he who first invented sleep; it covers a man all over like a cloak.
Cervantes.—Don Quixote.
I wish I could write a chapter upon sleep. It is a fine subject.
Sterne.—Tristram Shandy, Vol. III. Chap. XV.
The mystery of folded sleep.
Tennyson.—A Dream of Fair Women.
More he had spoke, but sudden vapours rise,
And with their silken cords tie down his eyes.
Dr. Garth.—The Dispensary, Canto I. last Lines.
Death, so call’d, is a thing which makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is pass’d in sleep.
Byron.—Don Juan, Canto XIV. Stanza 3.
Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleeve 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.
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act II. Scene 2. (To his Lady after the murder.)
Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
…..flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.
Dr. Young.—Night I. Line 1.
Sleep, thou repose of all things; Sleep, thou gentlest of the deities; thou peace of the mind, from which care flies; who dost soothe the hearts of men wearied with the toils of the day, and refittest them for labour.
Ovid.—Meta. Book XI. Line 623. (Riley’s Transl.)
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?
Shakespeare.—King Henry IV., Part II. Act III. Scene 1. (The King, solus.)
Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye.
Shakespeare.—Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III. Scene 2. (Helena.)
O’er my limbs sleep’s soft dominion spread.
Dr. Young.—Night I. Line 92.
And I pray you, let none of your people stir me: I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
Shakespeare.—Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV. Scene 1. (Bottom to Titania.)
Let me sleep on and do not wake me yet.
Longfellow.—The Spanish Student, Act III. Scene 5.
Sweet sleep fell upon his eyelids, unwakeful, most pleasant, the nearest like death.
Homer.—The Odyssey, Buckley’s Transl., 177. Spenser.—The Faërie Queen, Book II. Canto VII. Stanza 25.
They who make the least of death, consider it as having a great resemblance to sleep.
Cicero.—Tusculan Disputations, Book I. Div. 38. (Yonge’s Transl.)
Sleep and death, two twins of winged race,
Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace.
Pope’s Homer.—The Iliad, Book XVI. Line 831.
Silent in the tangles soft involv’d of death-like sleep.
Dyer.—The Fleece, Book II.
Death’s half-brother, sleep.
Dryden.—The Æneid, Book VI.
How wonderful is death, death and his brother, sleep!
Shelley.—Queen Mab, Line 1. Broome.—The gods and Titans.
Sleep, whence thou shalt ne’er awake;
Night, where dawn shall never break.
Burns.—Friar’s Garse, On Nithside, Line 49.
Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow,
Cheerless night that knows not morrow!
Burns.—Raving Winds, Verse 1.
Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast,
And the sleep be on thee cast,
That shall ne’er know waking.
Scott.—Guy Mannering, Chap. XXVII. (1829.)
That sleep which seem’d as it would ne’er awake.
Byron.—Don Juan, Canto II. Stanza 146. (1819, January.)
And weeping then she made her moan,
“The night comes on that knows not morn,
When I shall cease to be all alone,
To live forgotten and love forlorn.”
Tennyson.—Mariana in the South, last Verse.
Well, sleep thy fill, and take thy soft reposes;
But know, withal, sweet tastes have sour closes;
And he repents in thorns that sleeps in beds of roses.
Quarles.—Book I. No. VII. Stanza 3.
Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always in the afternoon.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act I. Scene 5. (The Ghost to Hamlet.)
Sleep no more,
Macbeth does murther sleep.
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act II. Scene 2. Lloyd.—The Actor.
And hast thou kill’d him sleeping?
Shakespeare.—Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III. Scene 2. (Hermia to Demetrius.)
Coward, wilt thou murder slumber?
Longfellow.—Frithiop’s Temptation. (From the Swedish.)
Sleep in peace, and wake in joy.
Scott.—Lord of the Isles, Canto V. Stanza 21.
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
And look on death itself.
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act II. Scene 3. (Macduff.)
Is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life;
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than Nature craves.
Thomson.—Summer.
Never sleep the sun up.
Rise to prevent the sun.
Vaughan.—Rules and Lessons, Verse 2.
How many sleep who kept the world awake!
Dr. Young.—Night IX. Line 58.
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower’d,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
Campbell.—The Soldier’s Dream, Verse 1.