The Sleeper

THE glen was fair as some Arcadian dell,
All shadow, coolness, and the rush of streams,
Save where the dazzling fire of noonday fell
Like stars within its under-sky of dreams.
Rich leaf and blossomed grape and fern-tuft made
Odors of Life and Slumber through the shade.

“ O peaceful heart of Nature! ” was my sigh,
“ How dost thou shame, in thine unconscious bliss,
Thy calm accordance with the changing sky,
O quiet heart, the restless life of this !
Take thou the place false friends have vacant left,
And bring thy bounty to repair the theft!"

So sighing, weary with the unsoothed pain
From insect-stings of women and Of men,
Uneasy heart and ever-baffled brain,
I breathed the silent beauty of the glen,
And from the fragrant shadows where she stood
Evoked the shyest Dryad of the wood.

Lo ! on a slanting rock, outstretched at length,
A woodman lay in slumber, fair as death, —
His limbs relaxed in all their supple strength,
His lips half-parted with his easy breath.
And by one gleam of hovering light caressed
His bare brown arm and white uncovered breast.

“Why comes he here?” I whispered, treading soft
The hushing moss beside his flinty bed:
“Sweet are the haycocks in yon clover-croft,—
The meadow turf were light beneath his head :
Could he not slumber by the orchard-tree,
And leave this quiet unprofaned for me ? ”

But something held my step. I bent, and scanned
(As one might view a veiny agate-stone)
The hard, half-open fingers of his hand,
Strong cords of wrist, knit round the jointed bone,
And sunburnt muscles, firm and full of power,
But harmless now as petals of a flower.

The rock itself was not more still: yet one
Light spray of grass shook ever at his wrist,
Counting the muffled pulses. Where the sun
The open fairness of his bosom kissed,
I marked the curious beauty of the skin,
And dim blue branches of the blood within.

There lay the unconscious Life, but, ah! more fair
Than ever blindly stirred in leaf and bark,—
Warmth, beauty, passion, mystery everywhere,
Beyond the Dryad’s feebly burning spark
Of cold poetic being: who could say
If here the angel or the wild beast lay?

Then I looked up and read his helpless face :
Peace touched the temples and the eyelids, slept
On drooping lashes, made itself a place
In smiles that gently to the corners crept
Of parting lips, and came and went, to show
The happy freedom of the heart below.

A holy rest! wherein the man became
Man’s interceding representative :
In Sleep’s white realm fell off his mask of blame,
And he was sacred, for that he did live.
His presence marred no more the quiet deep,
But all the glen became a shrine of sleep !

And then I mused: — How lovely this repose !
How the shut sense its dwelling consecrates !
Sleep guards itself against the hands of foes :
Its breath disarms the Envies and the Hates
Which haunt our lives : were this mine enemy,
My stealthy watch could not less reverent be !

Here lie our human passions, sung to rest
By tender Nature, anxious to restore
Some hours of innocence to every breast,
To part the husks around the untainted core
Of life, and show, in equal helplessness,
The hearts that wound us and the hearts that bless !

How swiftly in this frame the primal seeds
Of purity and peace revive anew!
One wave of sleep the stain of evil deeds
Effaces, as with Heaven's baptismal dew.
The pure white flame through all its ashes burns:
The effluent being to its source returns.

So hang their hands that would have done me wrong;
So sweet their breathing whose unkindly spite
Provoked the bitter measures of my song ;
So they might slumber, sacred in my sight,
As I in theirs: — why waste contentious breath?
Forget, like Sleep, and then forgive, like Death!

I bowed my head : the sleeper gently smiled, —
How far he lay from every sting and smart!
Some sinless dream his wandering thought beguiled,
And left its sweetness in his open heart.
The God that watched him in the lonely glen
Sent me, consoled and patient, back to men.