Brain-toss'd for sleep, the more that I entreat,
The balmy miracle forsakes my bed.
If sleep, so like to death, be thus so sweet,
How blessed to be dead!

This wakefulness is madness; and to sleep
Were passing into sanity. What though
I never woke again? From rest so deep
I should not seek to go.

For death is but a deeper sleep. We seem
From all this conscious being to be riven,
Yet have escaped into the glorious dream
Of everlasting Heaven.

And think not that a dream is absent fact,
Its life less true than waking. Is there one
Who has not risen from a dreamed act
Sorry or glad 'twas done?

Be it of grief or joy, it is as much
A verity as this our waking strife;
And, howsoever named, my thought is, such
Will be eternal life.

What! With the incongruities of dreams?
Even so. This life which we so real deem —
To him who is not fully in it, seems
As mad as any dream!