Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of Sentiment: VI. Labor and RestThe Voyage of Sleep
Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton (18491937)T
Unclasp the fetters of the mind,
Forget the sorrows of the day,
The burdens of the heart unbind.
Drifts out upon the sea of rest,
While all the shore behind grows dark
And silence reigns from east to west.
That bears me to the land of dreams,
Where music sighs among the trees
And murmurs in the winding streams.
That dawns in fear and ends in strife,
That brings no cooling draught to allay
The burning fever thirst of life;
Are pressed upon the throbbing brow,
And when the soul on shining sands
Descends with angels from the prow,
And blossoming lanes that wind and wind
To bowers where friends long parted meet
And sit again with arms entwined,
From pink-plumed orchards sloping fair
And every fresh-expanding rose
That throws sweet kisses to the air.
O blossoming lanes that wind and wind,
Ye are my refuge more and more
From ghosts that haunt the waking mind.
Forget the visions of unrest
That came through all the clamorous day,
And drift into the silent west.