Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Sleep Quotations

Very hot and still the air was, Very smooth the gliding river, Motionless the sleeping shadows.

God is not dead; nor doth He sleep; ... The wrong shall fail, The right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men.

Is this is a dream? O, if it be a dream, Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet!

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls The burial-ground God's-Acre! It is just; It consecrates each grave within its walls, And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping dust.

The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath, While underneath such leafy tents they keep The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.

Be thy sleep Silent as night is, and as deep.

All sense of hearing and of sight enfold in the serene delight and quietude of sleep.

Ah, yes, the sea is still and deep, All things within its bosom sleep! A single step, and all is o'er, A plunge, a bubble, and no more.

The moon is hidden behind a cloud... On the leaves is a sound of falling rain... No other sounds than these I hear; The hour of midnight must be near... So many ghosts, and forms of fright, Have started from their graves to-night, They have driven sleep from mine eyes away: I will go down to the chapel and pray.

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes and roofs of villages, on woodland crests and their aerial neighborhoods of nests deserted, on the curtained window-panes of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes and harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests.

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor. Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead Which, the more splendid, may not please him more; So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.