Famous Sleep Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Sleep poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous sleep poems. These examples illustrate what a famous sleep poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
See also:
by
John Berryman
The surly cop looked out at me in sleep
insect-like. Guess, who was the insect.
I'd asked him in my robe
& hospital gown in the elevator politely
why someone saw so many police around,
and without speaking he looked.
A meathead, and of course he was armed, to creep
across my nervous system some time ago wrecked.
I saw the point of Loeb
at last, to give...Read more of this...
by
Mother Goose
Sleep, baby, sleep,
Our cottage vale is deep:
The little lamb is on the green,
With woolly fleece so soft and clean--
Sleep, baby, sleep.
Sleep, baby, sleep,
Down where the woodbines creep;
Be always like the lamb so mild,
A kind, and sweet, and gentle child.
Sleep, baby, sleep....Read more of this...
by
Alfonsina Storni
You said the word that enamors
My hearing. You already forgot. Good.
Sleep peacefully. Your face should
Be serene and beautiful at all hours.
When the seductive mouth enchants
It should be fresh, your speech pleasant;
For your office as lover it's not good
That many tears come from your face.
More glorious destinies reclaim you
That were brought, between the black wells
Of the dark circles beneath your...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
When against earth a wooden heel
Clicks as loud as stone on steel,
When stone turns flour instead of flakes,
And frost bakes clay as fire bakes,
When the hard-bitten fields at last
Crack like iron flawed in the cast,
When the world is wicked and cross and old,
I long to be quit of the cruel cold.
Little birds...Read more of this...
by
Margaret Atwood
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
There's something quieter than sleep
Within this inner room!
It wears a sprig upon its breast --
And will not tell its name.
Some touch it, and some kiss it --
Some chafe its idle hand --
It has a simple gravity
I do not understand!
I would not weep if I were they --
How rude in one to sob!
Might scare the quiet fairy
Back to her native...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Now I lay thee down to Sleep --
I pray the Lord thy Dust to keep --
And if thou live before thou wake --
I pray the Lord thy Soul to make --...Read more of this...
by
Antonio Machado
Has my heart gone to sleep?
Have the beehives of my dreams
stopped working, the waterwheel
of the mind run dry,
scoops turning empty,
only shadow inside?
No, my heart is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
Not asleep, not dreaming—
its eyes are opened wide
watching distant signals, listening
on the rim of vast silence....Read more of this...
by
Louise Bogan
All night the cocks crew, under a moon like day,
And I, in the cage of sleep, on a stranger's breast,
Shed tears, like a task not to be put away---
In the false light, false grief in my happy bed,
A labor of tears, set against joy's undoing.
I would not wake at your word, I had tears to say.
I clung to the...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Warton
On this my pensive pillow, gentle Sleep!
Descend, in all thy downy plumage drest:
Wipe with thy wing these eyes that wake to weep,
And place thy crown of poppies on my breast.
O steep my senses in oblivion's balm,
And sooth my throbbing pulse with lenient hand;
This tempest of my boiling blood becalm!
Despair grows mild at thy supreme command.
Yet ah! in vain, familiar...Read more of this...
by
William Blake
Sleep! sleep! beauty bright,
Dreaming o'er the joys of night;
Sleep! sleep! in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.
Sweet Babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.
As thy softest limbs I feel,
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast
Where thy little heart does rest.
O! the cunning wiles that creep
In thy...Read more of this...
by
James Joyce
Sleep now, O sleep now,
O you unquiet heart!
A voice crying "Sleep now"
Is heard in my heart.
The voice of the winter
Is heard at the door.
O sleep, for the winter
Is crying "Sleep no more."
My kiss will give peace now
And quiet to your heart -- -
Sleep on in peace now,
O you...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Oh, quand je dors.")
{XXVII.}
Oh! when I sleep, come near my resting-place,
As Laura came to bless her poet's heart,
And let thy breath in passing touch my face—
At once a space
My lips will part.
And on my brow where too long weighed supreme
A vision—haply...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
The lateral vibrations caress me,
They leap and caress me,
They work pathetically in my favour,
They seek my financial good.
She of the spear stands present.
The gods of the underworld attend me, O Annubis,
These are they of thy company.
With a pathetic solicitude they attend me;
Undulant,
Their realm is the lateral courses.
Light!
I am...Read more of this...
by
John Gould Fletcher
she was a short one
getting fat and she had once been
beautiful and
she drank the wine
she drank the wine in bed and
talked and screamed and cursed at
me
and i told her
please, I need some
sleep.
-sleep? sleep? ya son of a
*****, ya never sleep, ya
don't need any
sleep!
I buried her one morning early
I carried her down the sides of the Hollywood...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
L’orage qui s’attarde, le lit d?fait
Yves Bonnefoy
Here am I, lying lacklustre in an unmade bed
A Sunday in December while all Leeds lies in around me
In the silent streets, frost on roof slates, gas fires
And kettles whistle as I read Bonnefoy on the eternal.
Too tired to fantasize, unsummoned images float by,
Feebly I snatch at them to comply with...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Out of the groves of sleep I came, somewhat morose because I had left you beneath their branches and their braided shadows, far from the glad morning sun.
Already the phlox and the hollyhocks glisten, and I wander in the garden dreaming of verses clear as crystal and silver that would ring in the light.
Then abruptly I return to you with...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,Which all the day with ceaseless care have sought
The magic gold which from the seeker flies;
Ere dreams put on the gown and cap of thought,
And make the waking world a world of lies,—
Of lies most palpable, uncouth, forlorn,
That say life's full of aches and tears and sighs,—
Oh, how with more than dreams...Read more of this...
by
Federico García Lorca
In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.
Nobody is asleep...Read more of this...
by
Alfonsina Storni
Teeth of flowers, hairnet of dew,
hands of herbs, you, perfect wet nurse,
prepare the earthly sheets for me
and the down quilt of weeded moss.
I am going to sleep, my nurse, put me to bed.
Set a lamp at my headboard;
a constellation; whatever you like;
all are good: lower it a bit.
Leave me alone: you hear the buds breaking through . . .
a...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A long, long sleep, a famous sleep
That makes no show for dawn
By stretch of limb or stir of lid, --
An independent one.
Was ever idleness like this?
Within a hut of stone
To bask the centuries away
Nor once look up for noon?...Read more of this...
by
John Keats
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 5
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes
Or wait the amen ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Drink wine! long must you sleep within the tomb,
Without a friend, or wife to cheer your gloom;
Hear what I say, and tell it not again,
«Never again can withered tulips bloom.»...Read more of this...
by
John Gould Fletcher
In the night of weariness
let me give myself up to sleep without struggle,
resting my trust upon thee.
Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship.
It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day
to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening....Read more of this...
by
William Blake
I see the Four-fold Man, The Humanity in deadly sleep
And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow.
I see the Past, Present and Future existing all at once
Before me. O Divine Spirit, sustain me on thy wings,
That I may awake Albion from his long and cold repose;
For Bacon and Newton, sheath'd in dismal steel, their terrors hang
Like...Read more of this...
Dont forget to view our wonderful member Sleep poems.