When to oft sleep we give ourselves away, <br />And in a dream as in a fairy bark <br />Drift on and on through the enchanted dark <br />To purple daybreak -- little thought we pay <br />To that sweet bitter world we know by day. <br />We are clean quit of it, as is a lark <br />So high in heaven no human eye can mark <br />The thin swift pinion cleaving through the gray. <br />Till we awake ill fate can do no ill, <br />The resting heart shall not take up again <br />The heavy load that yet must make it bleed; <br />For this brief space the loud world's voice is still, <br />No faintest echo of it brings us pain. <br />How will it be when we shall sleep indeed?<br /><br />Thomas Bailey Aldrich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sleep-17/
