Explore "Sleep is a Spirit" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits, / Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits; / From out her form a pearly light is shed, / As from a lily, in a lily-bed, / A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone, / And languid as a cloud that drifts alone / In starry heav'n. And her diaphanous feet / Are easy as the dew or opaline heat / Of summer.
Lo! with ears -- aurora pink / As Dawn's -- she leans and listens on the brink / Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt, / Wherein vague lights and shadows move about, / And palpitations beat -- like some huge heart / Of Earth -- the surging pulse of which we're part. / One hand, that hollows her divining eyes, / Glows like the curved moon over twilight skies; / And with her gaze she fathoms life and death -- / Gulfs, where man's conscience, like a restless breath / Of wind, goes wand'ring; whispering low of things, / The irremediable, where sorrow clings. / Around her limbs a veil of woven mist / Wavers, and turns from fibered amethyst / To textured crystal; through which symboled bars / Of silver burn, and cabalistic stars / Of nebulous gold.