Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INSOMNIA ' Sleepless himself to give to others sleep. He giveth His beloved sleep. I Heard the sounding of the midnight hour; The others one by one had left the room, In calm assurance that the gracious power Of sleep's fine alchemy would bless the gloom, Transmuting all its leaden weight to gold, To treasures of rich virtues manifold, New strength, new health, new life; Just weary enough to nestle softly, sweetly, Into divine unconsciousness, completely Delivered from the world of toil and care and strife. Just weary enough to feel assured of rest, Of Sleep's divine oblivion and repose, Renewing heart and brain for richer zest Of waking life when golden morning glows, As young and pure and glad as if the first That ever on the void of darkness burst With ravishing warmth and light; On dewy grass and flowers and blithe birds singing, And shining waters, all enraptured springing, Fragrance and shine and song, out of the womb of night. But I with infinite weariness outworn, Haggard with endless nights unblessed by sleep, Ravaged by thoughts unutterably forlorn, Plunged in despairs unfathomably deep, Went cold and pale and trembling with affright Into the desert vastitude of Night, Arid and wild and black; Foreboding no oasis of sweet slumber, Counting beforehand all the countless number Of sands that are its minutes on my desolate track. And so I went, the last, to my drear bed, Aghast as one who should go down to lie Among the blissfully unconscious dead, Assured that as the endless years flowed by Over the dreadful silence and deep gloom And dense oppression of the stifling tomb, He only of them all, Nerveless and impotent to madness, never Could hope oblivion's perfect trance for ever: An agony of life e...