THE PAINS OF SLEEP.

Fantastic passions! mad'ning brawl!

And shame and terror over all!

Deeds to be hid which were not hid,

Which all confused I could not know,
Whether I suffered, or I did:

For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame!

So two nights passed: the night's dismay
Sadden'd and stunn'd the coming day.

Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me
Distemper's worst calamity.

The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,

I wept as I had been a child;

And having thus by tears subdued

My anguish to a milder mood,

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Such punishments, I said, were due To natures deepliest stain'd with sin :

For aye entempesting anew

Th'unfathomable hell within

The horror of their deeds to view,
To know and loathe, yet wish and do!
Such griefs with such men well agree,
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me?
To be beloved is all I need,

And whom I love, I love indeed.

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