Logos Virtual Library: Keats: To Sleep

John Keats

John Keats (1795-1821)

To Sleep

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!

Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower’d from the light,

Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,

In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws

Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;

Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.