The Voyage of Sleep. Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton (1849-1937). Poems of Sentiment: VI. Labor and Rest. Bliss Carman, et al., eds. 1904. The World's Best Poetry. VI. Fancy

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VI. Fancy. 1904.

Poems of Sentiment: VI. Labor and Rest

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	5
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,	10
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	15
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,	20

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	25
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,	30
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,	35
And drift into the silent west.