How greatly good to fall outspread Full length at last upon my bed And bid the world farewell! Without a sound, without a spark, Immersed and drowned in pitchy dark And silence audible! One living breath thro' the utter gloom, Let pure Night's presence in the room Keep cool the voiceless hours:— Black Night's inodorous airs austere, More searching and more strongly dear Than Zephyr on the flowers! Then from my wearied brain decay The feverous fragments of the day, The thoughts that dance and die; From life's exhausted cells they flow, They throng and wander, whirl and go, And what is left am I. There leave me softly to regain The spent secretion of the brain From fountains darkly deep: O come not! speak not! let me be, Till from the heaven of heavens on me Descend the angel Sleep! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EPITAPH: FOR A VIRGIN LADY by COUNTEE CULLEN ON BEING ASKED FOR A WAR POEM by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS BEVERLY SHORE IN WINTER by THOMAS GOLD APPLETON DAWN ON THE HILLS (FROM A HOTEL WINDOW) by LILLIAN ATCHERSON |