The Voyage of Sleep

Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton (1849–1937)

TO sleep I give myself away,

Unclasp the fetters of the mind,

Forget the sorrows of the day,

The burdens of the heart unbind.

With empty sail this tired bark

Drifts out upon the sea of rest,

While all the shore behind grows dark

And silence reigns from east to west.

At last awakes the hidden breeze

That bears me to the land of dreams,

Where music sighs among the trees

And murmurs in the winding streams.

O weary day, O weary day,

That dawns in fear and ends in strife,

That brings no cooling draught to allay

The burning fever thirst of life;

O sacred night, when angel hands

Are pressed upon the throbbing brow,

And when the soul on shining sands

Descends with angels from the prow,

And sees soft skies and meadows sweet,

And blossoming lanes that wind and wind

To bowers where friends long parted meet

And sit again with arms entwined,

And catch the perfumed breeze that blows

From pink-plumed orchards sloping fair

And every fresh-expanding rose

That throws sweet kisses to the air.

O sacred night, O silvery shore,

O blossoming lanes that wind and wind,

Ye are my refuge more and more

From ghosts that haunt the waking mind.

To sleep I give myself away,

Forget the visions of unrest

That came through all the clamorous day,

And drift into the silent west.