Poem by John Keats

To Sleep

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 passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,--
    Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords 
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
    Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, 
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul. 

1. On Receiving a Laurel Crown from Leigh Hunt
2. Bards of Passion and of Mirth
3. Specimen of Induction to a Poem
4. Calidore
5. To (“Hadst Thou Liv’d in Days of Old…”)

Alice Meynell To Sleep ("Dear fool, be true to me!")

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