Skip to content
Linespedia

Sleep On!

Topics: classic

Fear no unlicensed entry,     Heed no bombastic talk,     While guards the British Sentry     Pall Mall and Birdcage Walk.     Let European thunders     Occasion no alarms,     Though diplomatic blunders     May cause a cry "To arms!"     Sleep on, ye pale civilians;     All thunder-clouds defy:     On Europe's countless millions     The Sentry keeps his eye!     Should foreign-born rapscallions     In London dare to show     Their overgrown battalions,     Be sure I'll let you know.     Should Russians or Norwegians     Pollute our favoured clime     With rough barbaric legions,     I'll mention it in time.     So sleep in peace, civilians,     The Continent defy;     While on its countless millions     The Sentry keeps his eye !

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Fear no unlicensed entry,..."

"Sleep On!" is a quintessential example of William Schwenck Gilbert's signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"When I was a lad I served a term     As office boy to an Attorney's firm.     I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,     And I polished u"

"Take a pair of sparkling eyes,     Hidden, ever and anon,     In a merciful eclipse     Do not heed their mild surprise     Having passed th"

"Of all the good attorneys who     Have placed their names upon the roll,     But few could equal BAINES CAREW     For tender-heartedness and so"

"A monarch is pestered with cares,     Though, no doubt, he can often trepan them;     But one comes in a shape he can never escape -     The im"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"When I was a lad I served a term     As office boy..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.