Sleep Is A Spirit.

Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits,     Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits;     From out her form a pearly light is shed,     As from a lily, in a lily-bed,     A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone,     And languid as a cloud that drifts alone     In starry heav'n. And her diaphanous feet     Are easy as the dew or opaline heat     Of summer.     Lo! with ears aurora pink     As Dawn's she leans and listens on the brink     Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt,     Wherein vague lights and shadows move about,     And palpitations beat like some huge heart     Of Earth the surging pulse of which we're part.     One hand, that hollows her divining eyes,     Glows like the curved moon over twilight skies;     And with her gaze she fathoms life and death     Gulfs, where man's conscience, like a restless breath     Of wind, goes wand'ring; whispering low of things,     The irremediable, where sorrow clings.     Around her limbs a veil of woven mist     Wavers, and turns from fibered amethyst     To textured crystal; through which symboled bars     Of silver burn, and cabalistic stars     Of nebulous gold.     Shrouding her feet and hair,     Within this woof, fantastic, everywhere,     Dreams come and go; the instant images     Of things she sees and thinks; realities,     Shadows, with which her heart and fancy swarm.     That in the veil take momentary form:     Now picturing heaven in celestial fire,     And now the hell of every soul's desire;     Hinting at worlds, God wraps in mystery,     Beyond the world we know and touch and see.