The Sleeping Beauty
Samuel Rogers · 1792
Public domain
From The Golden Treasury, selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. Samuel Rogers. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
Sleep on, and dream of Heaven awhile--
Tho' shut so close thy laughing eyes,
Thy rosy lips still wear a smile
And move, and breathe delicious sighs!
Ah, now soft blushes tinge her cheeks
And mantle o'er her neck of snow:
Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks
What most I wish--and fear to know!
She starts, she trembles, and she weeps!
Her fair hands folded on her breast:
--And now, how like a saint she sleeps!
A seraph in the realms of rest!
Sleep on secure! Above controul
Thy thoughts belong to Heaven and thee:
And may the secret of thy soul
Remain within its sanctuary!