Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my languish and restore the light,
With dark forgetting of my cares, return;
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-adventur'd youth:
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease, dreams, th' imagery of our day-desires
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
Never let rising sun approve you liars,
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain;
And never wake to feel the day's disdain.

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Note: Imitated from Desportes, Hippolyte, 75.

Text Authorship:

• by Samuel Daniel (1562 - 1619), "Delia XLV", appears in Delia. Contayning certayne sonnets: with the complaint of Rosamond, first published 1592 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Dominick Argento (1927 - 2019), "Sleep", 1957, published 1970 [ high voice and piano ], from 6 Elizabethan Songs, no. 2, New York, Boosey [sung text checked 1 time]
• by (William) Havergal Brian (1876 - 1972), "Sonnet: Care-charmer sleep", c1919, published >>1970 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by Peter W. F. Lawson (b. 1951), "Sonnet", 1978 [ soprano or tenor and piano ], from Care Charmer Sleepe, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]

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

• GER German (Deutsch) (Richard Flatter) , "Sonett an den Schlaf", appears in Die Fähre, Englische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrhunderten, first published 1936

Researcher for this page: Robert Grady

This text was added to the website: 2004-06-26
Line count: 14
Word count: 104