1829.] Sleep. 393 



Oh, Nature ! mighty Mother ! thou whose face. 

 Varied with shade and sunshine, sometimes glad 

 And sometimes grave, but ever kind and sweet. 

 Hath been to me a most familiar book ; 

 Thou, in whose lap my head was ever laid. 

 When grief sat heavy on me, and my heart 

 Had need of rest and friendship, — JNIother dear ! 

 If I have sought with not unwelcome step 

 Thy solemn haunts, and trode thy mystic groves, — 

 If with a song not tuneless to thine ear. 

 My voice hath dared to break thine awful sleep. 

 Bear with me now, — bear with thy wayward child. 



I said that Sleep, in wrath departing, left me 

 When with unhallowed grief I brake the silence 

 Of the bright realm he bore me to ; he left me 

 Outworn and spent, as the retiring wave 

 Leaves the sad mariner upon the shore. 



I journeyed onward; weary days and nights 

 Rolled past me heavily : in vain 1 sought 

 To win Sleep back to kindness ; when he came. 

 He came in gloom and silence, and I cowered 

 Beneath the shadow of his brooding wings 

 With strange misgivings. Gentle dreams no more 

 Sat on my pillow, breathing lulling tales ; 

 But ghastly shadows hainited me — I fled. 

 Upborne on swift-winged winds, through the dark sky. 

 Trampling the driving rack, — or headlong hurled. 

 Fell flashing down from some unmeasured height. 

 While grisly shapes stood mocking me, — or buried 

 Deep in the sunless centre, lay for ever. 

 This was not all — the shadow of the night 

 Fell on the day, and darkness compassed me : 

 The voice of crowded cities — thronging life — 

 The masquing tricks of hollow-hearted Mirth 

 Became a curse, mocking me with lip-comfort ; 

 Music, who long had loved me, left me too, 

 And my dumb harp answered my call no more. 

 .... I fled the haunts of man, and sought the wilds 

 Dear to my early youth. 



There is a place. 

 Where massy rocks uplifted, cliff on cliff. 

 Look down upon a sea that never sleeps ; 

 Heavily toil the restless waves for ever. 

 Scaling the cliffs, like Sisyphus, in vain. 

 Or moaning through the solitary caves. 

 — This was the scene I loved — the dim gray sky, 

 The wild fantastic shore, the heaving deep. 

 Became my home. Fancy will weave strange dreams ! 

 I could have deemed, all friendless as I was. 

 That things inanimate were touched with pity. 

 And met me with kind looks of thoughtful sadness. 

 In this my rude and solitary haunt. 

 There would I sit, and listen to the hymns 

 Chaunted by winds unseen, or catch the voice 

 Of the lone eagle in his far-off flight. 

 Cleaving the stillness of the evening air, — 

 Or watch the stars, as, one by one, they came 

 Down through the sapphire sky, with bright slow step, 

 M.M. New Series Vol. VIII No. 46. 3 E 



