248 Voices of Unseen Spirits

HERE falls no light of sun nor stars;

No stir nor striving here intrudes;

No moan nor merry-making mars

The quiet of these solitudes.

Submerged in sleep, the passive soul

Is one with all the things that seem;

Night blurs in one confusèd whole

Alike the dreamer and the dream.

O dwellers in the busy town!

For dreams you smile, for dreams you weep.

Come out, and lay your burdens down!

Come out; there is no God but Sleep.

Sleep, and renounce the vital day;

For evil is the child of life.

Let be the will to live, and pray

To find forgetfulness of strife.

Beneath the thicket of these leaves

No light discriminates each from each.

No Self that wrongs, no Self that grieves

Hath longer deed nor creed nor speech.

Sleep on the mighty Mother’s breast!

Sleep, and no more be separate!

Then, one with Nature’s ageless rest,

There shall be no more sin to hate.