Ernest Christopher Dowson: Verses about Sleep

Come hither, child, and rest,
This is the end of day,
Behold the weary West!

Sleep rounds with equal zest
Man's toil and children's play,
Come hither, child, and rest.

My white bird, seek thy nest,
Thy drooping head down lay,
Behold the weary West!

Now eve is manifest
And homeward lies our way,
Behold the weary West!

Tired flower! upon my breast
I would wear thee alway,
Come hither, child, and rest -
Behold the weary West!

Come hither, child, and rest,
This is the end of day,
Behold the weary West!

Sleep rounds with equal zest
Man's toil and children's play,
Come hither, child, and rest.

My white bird, seek thy nest,
Thy drooping head down lay,
Behold the weary West!

Now eve is manifest
And homeward lies our way,
Behold the weary West!

Tired flower! upon my breast
I would wear thee alway,
Come hither, child, and rest -
Behold the weary West!

Let be at last; give over words and sighing,
Vainly were all things said:
Better at last to find a place for lying,
Only dead.

Silence were best, with songs and sighing over;
Now be the music mute;
Now let the dead, red leaves of autumn cover
A vain lute.

Silence is best: for ever and for ever,
We will go down and sleep,
Somewhere beyond her ken, where she need never
Come to weep.

Let be at last: colder she grows and colder;
Sleep and the night were best;
Lying at last where we cannot behold her,
We may rest.

Sleep on, dear, now
The last sleep and the best,
And on thy brow,
And on thy quiet breast
Violets I throw.

Thy scanty years
Were mine a little while;
Life had no fears
To trouble thy brief smile
With toil or tears.

Lie still, and be
For evermore a child!
Not grudgingly,
Whom life has not defiled,
I render thee.

Slumber so deep,
No man would rashly wake;
I hardly weep,
Fain only, for thy sake.
To share thy sleep.

Yes, to be dead,
Dead, here with thee to-day,--
When all is said
'Twere good by thee to lay
My weary head.

The very best!
Ah, child so tired of play,
I stand confessed:
I want to come thy way,
And share thy rest.

Neobule, being tired,
Far too tired to laugh or weep,
From the hours, rosy and gray,
Hid her golden face away.
Neobule, fain of sleep,
Slept at last as she desired!

Neobule! is it well,
That you haunt the hollow lands,
Where the poor, dead people stray,
Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
Plucking, with their spectral hands,
Scentless blooms of asphodel?

Neobule, tired to death
Of the flowers that I threw
On her flower-like, fair feet,
Sighed for blossoms not so sweet,
Lunar roses pale and blue,
Lilies of the world beneath.

Neobule! ah, too tired
Of the dreams and days above!
Where the poor, dead people stray,
Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
Out of life and out of love,
Sleeps the sleep which she desired.

Strange grows the river on the sunless evenings!
The river comforts me, grown spectral, vague and dumb:
Long was the day; at last the consoling shadows come:
_Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!_

Labour and longing and despair the long day brings;
Patient till evening men watch the sun go west;
Deferred, expected night at last brings sleep and rest:
_Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!_

At last the tranquil Angelus of evening rings
Night's curtain down for comfort and oblivion
Of all the vanities observed by the sun:
_Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!_

So, some time, when the last of all our evenings
Crowneth memorially the last of all our days,
Not loth to take his poppies man goes down and says,
'Sufficient for the day were the day's evil things!'

I the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.

Is the wood's dim heart,
And the fragrant pine,
Incense, and a shrine
Of her coming. Apart,
I wait for a sign.

What the sudden hush said,
She will hear, and forsake,
Swift, for my sake,
Her green, grassy bed:
She will hear and awake!

She will hearken and glide,
From her place of deep rest,
Dove-eyed, with the breast
Of a dove, to my side:
The pines bow their crest.

I wait for a sign:
The leaves to be waved,
The tall tree-tops laved
In a flood of sunshine,
This world to be saved!

In the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.