Explore "To Sleep" by Alice Meynell on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Dear fool, be true to me!
I know the poets speak thee fair, and I
Hail thee uncivilly.
O but I call with a more urgent cry!
I do not prize thee less,
I need thee more, that thou dost love to teach --
Father of foolishness --
The imbecile dreams clear out of wisdom's reach.
Come and release me; bring / My irresponsible mind; come in thy hours.
Draw from my soul the sting / Of wit that trembles, consciousness that cowers.
For if night comes without thee / She is more cruel than day. But thou, fulfil / Thy work, thy gifts about thee -- / Liberty, liberty, from this weight of will.
My day-mind can endure / Upright, in hope, all it must undergo.
But O afraid, unsure, / My night-mind waking lies too low, too low.
Dear fool, be true to me! / The night is thine, man yields it, it beseems / Thy ironic dignity.
Make me all night the innocent fool that dreams.