III.
Life is no sleepless dream, as poets sing :1
Death is no dreamless sleep, as sophists say.2
A deeper wisdom tells us, brothers they,3
Loving, though parted until Time shall bring4
The twain together in their journeying,5
To part no more, on that supremest day,6
When Heaven and Earth and Time shall pass away,7
And Christ shall reign o’er all as God and King.8
Yet, till they meet, there stands a third between,9
A brother, like yet differing from each,10
And he is Sleep, whose mission is to teach11
What Life’s and Death’s less mysteries may mean,*12
Till, Life’s watch o’er, we “fall on sleep,” to spring13
To deathless Life through Death’s awakening.14
*
Ὓπνος τἁ μιχρἁ του̃̃ θανάτου μιστήρια
—Menander.