Come Sleep, O Sleep …

Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low;
With shield of proof shield me from out the press
Of those fierce darts
Despair at me doth throw!
Oh, make in me those civil wars to cease!—
I will good tribute pay if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed,
A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light,
A rosy garland, and a weary head;
And if these things, as being thine in right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella’s image see.

Sir Philip Sidney

Note 1: If you are reading this sonnet out loud, “press” in Elizabethan English was pronounced “preese” to rhyme with release. Or anyway, that’s what they told me in college.

Dedicated to all our noisy, joyfully barking dogs from Divot to Duke and all in between. They woke me up, they woke up the neighbors, they howled at dawn and I loved them madly.

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Note 2: If your dogs bark all night, one day you’ll be so tired, you’ll sleep through it. That’s a promise!

Categories: #Photography, Books, dogs, Marilyn Armstrong, Pets, Poetry, Scottish Terrier

Tags: dogs, Elizabethen poetry, Marilyn Armstrong, Philip Sidney, poetry, sleep, sonnet