The Sleeper - Sopo Aeternus

At midnight in the month of June

I stand beneath the mystic moon

An opiate vapor dewy dim

Exhales from out her golden rim

And softly dripping drop by drop

Upon the quiet mountain top

Steals drowsily and musically

Into the universal valley

The rosemary nods upon the grave

The lily lolls upon the wave

Wrapping the fog about it's breast

The ruin molders into rest

Looking like Lethe see the lake

A conscious slumber seems to take

And would not for the world awake

And would not for the world awake

All Beauty sleeps - and lo where lies

The skace men dou ben till the sky

Irene with her Destinies

O lady bright can it be right

This window open to the night

The wanton airs from the tree-top

Laughingly through the lattice drop

The bodiless airs a wizard rout

Flit through thy chamber in and out

And wave the curtain canopy

So fitfully- so cearfully

Above the closed and fringed lid

Neath which thy slumb ring soul lies hid

That over the floor and down the wall

Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall

Oh lady dear hast thou no fear

Why and what art thou dreaming here

Sure thou art come over far-off seas

A wonder to these garden trees

Strange is thy pallor strange thy dress

Strange above all thy length of tress

And this all this

And this all solemn silentness

My lover sleeps Oh may her sleep

Which is enduring so be deep

Heaven have her in it's sacred keep

This chamber changed for one more holy

This bed for one more melancholy

I pray to God that he may lie

For ever with unopened eye

While the pale sheeted ghosts go by

My love she sleeps Oh may her sleep

As it is lasting so be deep

Soft may the worms about her creep

May the worms about her creep

My love she sleeps Oh may her sleep

As it is lasting so be deep

Soft may the worms about her creep

May the worms about her creep

My love she sleeps oh may her sleep

As it is lasting so be deep

Soft may the worms about her creep

Far in the forest dim and old

For her may some tall vault unfold

Some vault that of the flung it's black

And winged panels fluttering back

Triumphant over the crested palls

Of her grand family funerals

Some sepulchre remote alone

Against whose portal she hath thrown

In childhood many an idle stone

Some tomb from out whose sounding door

She never shall force an echo more

Thrilling to think poor child of sin

It was the dead who groaned within