William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.
Song: Morpheus, the humble god, that dwellsSir John Denham (16151669)
M
In cottages and smoky cells,
Hates gilded roofs and beds of down;
And though he fears no prince’s frown,
Flies from the circle of a crown.
And thy leaden charming-rod,
Dipt in the Lethéan lake,
O’er his wakeful temples shake,
Lest he should sleep, and never wake.
Obligèd to thy greatest foe?
Sleep that is thy best repast,
Yet of death it bears a taste,
And both are the same things at last.