War and Love/Sleep

by Richard Aldington

For works with similar titles, see Sleep.

 

SLEEP

If but to sleep alone be fair
As poets say,
How piercing sweet to lie all night
Until the day
With all her flower-like body pressed
Close unto mine,
To feel her moving heart, to taste
Her breath like wine,
To hold her pointed, smooth, soft breast
In one firm hand
And let the other lie at rest
In love's own land.

Ah, it were good to cease and die
So sweet a way,
Never to waken from her bed
To the chill day,
But sleep forever in a dream
Head beside head,
Warm in a golden swoon of love—
Divinely dead.