Love-cradling Night, lit by the lucent moon, <br />Most pitiful and mother-hearted Night! <br />Blest armistice in life's tumultuous fight, <br />Resolving discords to a spheral tune! <br />When tired with heat and strenuous toil of noon, <br />With ceaseless conflict betwixt might and right, <br />With ebb and flow of sorrow and delight, <br />Our panting hearts beneath their burdens swoon: <br /> <br />To thee, O star-eyes comforter, we creep, <br />Earth's ill-used step-children to thee make moan, <br />As hiding in thy dark skirts' ample sweep; <br />--Poor debtors whose brief life is not their own; <br />For dunned by Death, to whom we owe its loan, <br />Give us, O Night, the interest paid in sleep.<br /><br />Mathilde Blind<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sleep-18/
