The Sleeper Lyrics

At midnight in the month of June

I stand beneath the mystic moon

An opiate vapor dewy dim

Exhales from out her golden rim

And softly dripping drop by drop

Upon the quiet mountain top

Steals drowsily and musically

Into the universal valley

The rosemary nods upon the grave;

The lily lolls upon the wave;

Wrapping the fog about its breast

The ruin moulders into rest;

Looking like Lethe see! the lake

A conscious slumber seems to take

And would not for the world awake

All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies

Irene with her Destinies!

Oh lady bright! can it be right

This window open to the night?

The wanton airs from the tree-top

Laughingly through the lattice drop

The bodiless airs a wizard rout

Flit through thy chamber in and out

And wave the curtain canopy

So fitfully—so fearfully

Above the closed and fringéd lid

'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid

That o'er the floor and down the wall

Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!

Oh lady dear hast thou no fear?

Why and what art thou dreaming here?

Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas

A wonder to these garden trees!

Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!

Strange above all thy length of tress

And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh may her sleep

Which is enduring so be deep!

Heaven have her in its sacred keep!

This chamber changed for one more holy

This bed for one more melancholy

I pray to God that she may lie

Forever with unopened eye

While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love she sleeps! Oh may her sleep

As it is lasting so be deep!

Soft may the worms about her creep!

Far in the forest dim and old

For her may some tall vault unfold

Some vault that oft hath flung its black

And wingéd pannels fluttering back

Triumphant o'er the crested palls

Of her grand family funerals

Some sepulchre remote alone

Against whose portals she hath thrown

In childhood many an idle stone

Some tomb from out whose sounding door

She ne'er shall force an echo more

Thrilling to think poor child of sin!

It was the dead who groaned within

It was the dead who groaned within

It was the dead who groaned within