Read "The City of Sleep" by Rudyard Kipling online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Over the edge of the purple down, / Where the single lamplight gleams. / Know ye the road to the Merciful Town / That is hard by the Sea of Dreams -- / Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, / And the sick may forget to-weep? / But we -- pity us! Oh, pity us! / We wakeful; ah, pity us! -- / We must go back with Policeman Day -- / Back from the City of Sleep!
Weary they turn from the scroll and crown, / Fetter and prayer and plough -- / They that go up to the Merciful Town, / For her gates are closing now. / It is their right in the Baths of Night / Body and soul to steep, / But we -- pity us! ah, pity us! / We wakeful; oh, pity us! -- / We must go back with Policeman Day -- / Back from the City of Sleep!
Over the edge of the purple down, / Ere the tender dreams begin, / Look -- we may look -- at the Merciful Towns / But we may not enter in! / Outcasts all, from her guarded wall / Back to our watch we creep: / We -- pity us! ah, pity us! / We wakeful; oh, pity us! -- / We that go back with Policeman Day -- / Back from the City of Sleep!