C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Sleep
By Baltasar del Alcázar (1530–1606)
S
It has caprices of its own:
When most pursued,—’tis swiftly gone;
When courted least, it lingers still.
With its vagaries long perplext,
I turned and turned my restless sconce,
Till one bright night, I thought at once
I’d master it; so hear my text!
My long and my accustomed prayer;
And in a twinkling sleep is there,
Through my bed-curtains peeping in.
When sleep hangs heavy on my eyes,
I think of debts I fain would pay;
And then, as flies night’s shade from day,
Sleep from my heavy eyelids flies.
Ev’n his fantastic will to me;
And, strange, yet true, both I and he
Are friends,—the very best of friends.
We are a happy wedded pair,
And I the lord and she the dame;
Our bed—our board—our hours the same,
And we’re united everywhere.
This wayward sleep:—a whispered word
From a church-going hag I heard,
And tried it—for I was no fool.
So from that very hour I knew
That having ready prayers to pray,
And having many debts to pay,
Will serve for sleep and waking too.