KEATS 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 passèd 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 oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd casket of my soul.