Poems (Sharpless)/"I Must Sleep Now"

by Frances M. Sharpless

"I MUST SLEEP NOW" The Last Words of Byron

Sleep when the throbbings of life's fitful fever
 Fall faint and fainter on the anxious ear—
Then all the ties that bind the Spirit sever,
 And bid it rise from anguish, and from care.

Sleep—be it lightly, with no memory waking
 One fond regret, one throb of earthly pain;
Still be the heart that suffered nigh to breaking,
 That ne'er shall suffer human grief again.

And she, the dearest, she whose image ever
 Shrined in thy heart was purest, and the best—
Shalt thou then leave this weary world, and never
 Repose thy head upon a daughter's breast?

But tho' thy smiles delight with untold gladness,
 Her mother's heart, to her the riper years
Will fill her soul with sympathizing sadness,
 As o'er thy tale she bends with bitter tears.

Be it for us to name thy errors slowly,
 While Mercy's tears remove the sanguined stain;
For Death's cold touch hath made thy memory holy,—
 A thing beyond our judgment or disdain.