| |
| SLEEP that like the couched dove | |
| Broods o’er the weary eye, | |
| Dreams that with soft heavings move | |
| The heart of memory, | |
| Labor’s guerdon, golden rest, | 5 |
| Wrap thee in its downy vest,— | |
| Fall like comfort on thy brain | |
| And sing the hush song to thy pain! | |
| |
| Far from thee be startling fears, | |
| And dreams the guilty dream; | 10 |
| No banshee scare thy drowsy ears | |
| With her ill-omen’d scream; | |
| But tones of fairy minstrelsy | |
| Float like the ghosts of sound o’er thee, | |
| Soft as the chapel’s distant bell, | 15 |
| And lull thee to a sweet farewell. | |
| |
| Ye for whom the ashy hearth | |
| The fearful housewife clears, | |
| Ye whose tiny sounds of mirth | |
| The nighted carman hears, | 20 |
| Ye whose pygmy hammers make | |
| The wonderers of the cottage wake, | |
| Noiseless be your airy flight, | |
| Silent as the still moonlight. | |
| |
| Silent go, and harmless come, | 25 |
| Fairies of the stream: | |
| Ye, who love the winter gloom | |
| Or the gay moonbeam, | |
| Hither bring your drowsy store | |
| Gather’d from the bright lusmore; | 30 |
| Shake o’er temples, soft and deep, | |
| The comfort of the poor man, sleep. | |
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