ODE IX. To SLEEP. Mark Akenside Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. T42068 K027268.000 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.

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ODE IX . To SLEEP . THOU silent pow'r , whose balmy sway Charms every anxious thought away ; In whose divine oblivion drown'd , Fatigue and toiling pain grow mild , Love is with sweet success beguil'd And sad remorse forgets her secret wound ; O whither hast thou flown , indulgent God ? God of kind shadows , and of healing dews , O'er whom dost thou extend thy magic rod ? Around what peaceful couch thy opiate airs diffuse ? Lo , midnight from her starry reign Looks awful down on earth and main . The tuneful birds lie hush'd in sleep , With all that crop the verdant food , With all that skim the crystal flood , Or haunt the cayerns of the rocky steep . No rushing winds disturb the tufted bowr's ; No wakeful sound the moonlight valley knows , Save where the brook its liquid murmur pours , And lulls the waving scene to more profound repose . O let not me thus watch alone ! O hear my solitavy moan ! Descend , propitious , on my eyes ; Not from the couch that bears a crown , Not from the statesman's thorny down , Or where the miser and his treasure lies : Bring not the shapes that break the murd'rer's rest ; Nor those the hireling soldier burns to see , Nor those that haunt the tyrant's gloomy breast : Far be their guilty nights , and far their dreams from me ! Nor yet those awful joys present , For chiefs and heroes only meant : The figur'd brass , the choral song , The rescued people's glad applause , The list'ning senate , and the laws 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 , Are scenes too grand for fortune's private ways ; And tho' they shine to youth's ingenuous view , The sober gainful arts of modern days , To such romantic thoughts have bid a long adieu . Blest be my fate ! I need not pray That lovesick dreams be kept away : No female charms , of fancy born , Nor damask cheek , nor spaikling eye , With me the bands of sleep untie , Or steal by minutes half the sauntring morn . Nor yet the courtier's hope , the giving smile , ( A lighter phantom and a baser chain ) Bids wealth and place the fever'd night beguile , To gall my waking hours with more vexatious pain . But , Morpheus , on thy dewy wing Such fair auspicious visions bring , As sooth'd great MILTON'S injur'd age , When in prophetic dreams he saw The tribes unborn with pious awe . Imbibe each virtue from his heavenly page : Or such as MEAD'S benignant fancy knows , When health's kind treasures , by his art explor'd , Have sav'd the infant from an orphan's woes , Or to the trembling fire his age's hope restor'd .