Two Sonnets

Song Cycle by Robert B. Whitcomb (b. 1921)

?. To Sleep  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
  Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
  Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
  In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen" ere thy poppy throws
  Around my bed its lulling charities.
  Then save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes, -
  Save me from curious Conscience, that still [lords]1
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like [a]2 mole;
  Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd Casket of my Soul.

Text Authorship:

  • by John Keats (1795 - 1821), "To Sleep", written 1819?

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

View original text (without footnotes)
First published in a Plymouth newspaper in 1838
1 changed to "hoards" by Richard Woodhouse, and kept by Keats in the second transcription. Chávez uses this version.
2 changed to "the" in Keats' second transcription. Chávez uses this as well.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 103