Samuel Minturn Peck (1854-1886)

"From Cap and Bells." (Sharp)

Sleep

O Sleep, good mother of enchanting dreams,

Within thy soothing arms oh let me lie,

What time the night-wind sings a lullaby,

And the moon kisses down with cooling gleams,

Mine eyelids weary of day's sultry beams;

Then let thy rarest visions come anigh,

Dead hopes fulfilled in perfect radiancy,

Whose fairness all my waking pain redeems;

With Loline let me stray through jasmine bowers,

A balmy world of love whose stars are flowers,

Where zephyrs sigh in such a tender way

They seem to breathe the words we long to say;

And when these dreams have come, good Sleep, ah then

I pray thee do not let me wake again.