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Home  »  The English Poets  »  A Repose

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall) (1787–1874)

A Repose

SHE sleeps amongst her pillows soft,

(A dove, now wearied with her flight),

And all around, and all aloft,

Hang flutes and folds of virgin white:

Her hair out-darkens the dark night,

Her glance out-shines the starry sky;

But now her locks are hidden quite,

And closed is her fringed eye!

She sleepeth: wherefore doth she start?

She sigheth; doth she feel no pain?

None, none! the Dream is near her heart;

The Spirit of sleep is in her brain.

He cometh down like golden rain,

Without a wish, without a sound;

He cheers the sleeper (ne’er in vain),

Like May, when earth is winter-bound.

All day within some cave he lies,

Dethroned from his nightly sway,—

Far fading when the dawning skies

Our souls with wakening thoughts array.

Two Spirits of might doth man obey;

By each he’s wrought, from each he learns:

The one is Lord of life by day;

The other when starry Night returns.