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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  Invocation to Sleep

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Sentiment: VI. Labor and Rest

Invocation to Sleep

John Fletcher (1579–1625)

From “Valentinian”

COME, Sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving

Lock me in delight awhile;

Let some pleasing dreams beguile

All my fancies, that from thence

I may feel an influence,

All my powers of care bereaving!

Though but a shadow, but a sliding,

Let me know some little joy!

We that suffer long annoy

Are contented with a thought,

Through an idle fancy wrought:

O, let my joys have some abiding!