RIV

POPPY JUICE FOR INSOMNIA

(Soothers and Soporifics)

TO SLEEP

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,

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.

KIND SLEEP

BY ISABEL FISKE CONANT

Slip into sleep as easy as a gown
The soft and clinging draperies of dream
The under-sea-green trail that down and down,
Sinks rhythmically with a sunless gleam,-

Then wake as gradually as lilies rise

Spreading wet, yielding petals, new to suns,

To waterless, light element of skies,
Unoceanic, and yet native ones.

Slip into death as birds drop down the side
Of rugged canyons that they never fear,
As wings upon the blue that, rising, ride,
Then waken to a better time of year.
Tossing away a far too long November,
Returning to the April you remember.

FOR SLEEP WHEN OVERTIRED OR WORRIED

BY SARAH N. CLEGHORN

Cares and anxieties,

I roll you all up in a bundle together;

I carry you across the meadow to the river.

River, I am throwing in a bundle of cares and anxieties. Float it away to the sea!

Now I come slowly back across the meadow,

Slowly into the house,

Slowly up to my room.

The night is quiet and cool;

The lights are few and dim;

The sounds are drowsy and far away and melting

into each other;

Melting into the night.

Sleep comes creeping nearer, creeping nearer;

It goes over my head like a wave.

I sleep... I rest. . . I sleep.