Dear, yet forbidden thoughts, that from my soul, <br />While shines the weary sun, with stern control <br />I drive away; why, when my spirits lie <br />Shrouded in the cold sleep of misery, <br />Do ye return, to mock me with false dreaming, <br />Where love, and all life's happiness is beaming? <br />O visions fair! that one by one have gone <br />Down, 'neath the dark horizon of my days; <br />Let not your pale reflection linger on <br />In the bleak sky, where live no more your rays. <br />Night! silent nurse, that with thy solemn eyes <br />Hang'st o'er the rocking cradle of the world, <br />Oh! be thou darker to my dreaming eyes; <br />Nor, in my slumbers, be the past unfurl'd. <br />Haunt me no more with whisperings from the dead, <br />The dead in heart, the changed, the withered: <br />Bring me no more sweet blossoms from my spring, <br />Which round my soul their early fragrance fling, <br />And, when the morning, with chill icy start, <br />Wakes me, hang blighted round my aching heart: <br />O night and slumber, be ye visionless, <br />Dark as the grave, deep as forgetfulness! <br />Night, thou shalt nurse me, but be sure, good nurse, <br />While sitting by my bed, that thou art silent, <br />I will not let thee sing me to my slumbers <br />With the sweet lullabies of former times, <br />Nor tell me tales, as other gossips wont, <br />Of the strange fairy days, that are all gone.<br /><br />Frances Anne Kemble<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lines-written-at-sea-i/
