“Life is no sleepless dream, as poets sing”
John Francis
Waller
Waller, John Francis
Metadata research and editing
DVPP Project Team
Kailey
Fukushima
University of Victoria Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry Project
Victoria, BC, Canada
In the public domain
Poem included in a sonnet sequence under the general title Life and Death. Three Sonnets by John Francis Waller (495). (KF)
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
128
780
495
Life is no sleepless dream, as poets sing :
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III
.
Life is no sleepless dream, as poets sing :
Death is no dreamless sleep, as sophists say.
A deeper wisdom tells us, brothers they,
Loving, though parted until Time shall bring
The twain together in their journeying,
To part no more, on that supremest day,
When Heaven and Earth and Time shall pass away,
And Christ shall reign o’er all as God and King.
Yet, till they meet, there stands a third between,
A brother, like yet differing from each,
And he is Sleep, whose mission is to teach
What Life’s and Death’s less mysteries may mean,*
Till, Life’s watch o’er, we “fall on sleep,” to spring
To deathless Life through Death’s awakening.
John Francis Waller
.
*
Ὓπνος τἁ μιχρἁ του̃̃ θανάτου μιστήρια
—Menander.