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ODE IX. To SLEEP.

1 THOU silent pow'r, whose balmy sway
2 Charms every anxious thought away;
3 In whose divine oblivion drown'd,
4 Fatigue and toiling pain grow mild,
5 Love is with sweet success beguil'd
6 And sad remorse forgets her secret wound;
7 O whither hast thou flown, indulgent God?
8 God of kind shadows, and of healing dews,
9 O'er whom dost thou extend thy magic rod?
10 Around what peaceful couch thy opiate airs diffuse?
11 Lo, midnight from her starry reign
12 Looks awful down on earth and main.
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13 The tuneful birds lie hush'd in sleep,
14 With all that crop the verdant food,
15 With all that skim the crystal flood,
16 Or haunt the cayerns of the rocky steep.
17 No rushing winds disturb the tufted bowr's;
18 No wakeful sound the moonlight valley knows,
19 Save where the brook its liquid murmur pours,
20 And lulls the waving scene to more profound repose.
21 O let not me thus watch alone!
22 O hear my solitavy moan!
23 Descend, propitious, on my eyes;
24 Not from the couch that bears a crown,
25 Not from the statesman's thorny down,
26 Or where the miser and his treasure lies:
27 Bring not the shapes that break the murd'rer's rest;
28 Nor those the hireling soldier burns to see,
29 Nor those that haunt the tyrant's gloomy breast:
30 Far be their guilty nights, and far their dreams from me!
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31 Nor yet those awful joys present,
32 For chiefs and heroes only meant:
33 The figur'd brass, the choral song,
34 The rescued people's glad applause,
35 The list'ning senate, and the laws
36 Bent on the dictates of
After Timoleon had deliver'd Syracuse from the tyranny of Dionysius, the people on every important deliberation sent for him into the public assembly, ask'd his advice, and voted according to his decision. PLUTARCH.
TIMOLEON'S tongue,
37 Are scenes too grand for fortune's private ways;
38 And tho' they shine to youth's ingenuous view,
39 The sober gainful arts of modern days,
40 To such romantic thoughts have bid a long adieu.
41 Blest be my fate! I need not pray
42 That lovesick dreams be kept away:
43 No female charms, of fancy born,
44 Nor damask cheek, nor spaikling eye,
45 With me the bands of sleep untie,
46 Or steal by minutes half the sauntring morn.
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47 Nor yet the courtier's hope, the giving smile,
48 (A lighter phantom and a baser chain)
49 Bids wealth and place the fever'd night beguile,
50 To gall my waking hours with more vexatious pain.
51 But, Morpheus, on thy dewy wing
52 Such fair auspicious visions bring,
53 As sooth'd great MILTON'S injur'd age,
54 When in prophetic dreams he saw
55 The tribes unborn with pious awe.
56 Imbibe each virtue from his heavenly page:
57 Or such as MEAD'S benignant fancy knows,
58 When health's kind treasures, by his art explor'd,
59 Have sav'd the infant from an orphan's woes,
60 Or to the trembling fire his age's hope restor'd.

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Title (in Source Edition): ODE IX. To SLEEP.
Author: Mark Akenside
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Genres: ode

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Akenside, Mark, 1721-1770. Odes on several subjects. London: printed for R. Dodsley. And sold by M. Cooper. M.DCC.XLV., 1745, pp. 44-47. 54p.; 4⁰. (ESTC T42068; OTA K027268.000) (Page images digitized by University of California Libraries.)

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