Tuesday, 29 January 2013

Anthology 39 - "Sleep, Angry Beauty"

I can't believe I'm still up (the things I do for the party, tedious work with spreadsheets and PDFs...). I really should have been asleep for a couple of hours... I have therefore chosen a poem about, amongst other things, sleep. Although this is how the sleep of a angry lover can be a blessing.

Sleep, Angry Beauty by Thomas Campion

Sleep, angry beauty, sleep, and fear not me.
For who a sleeping lion dares provoke?
It shall suffice me here to sit and see
Those lips shut up that never kindly spoke.
   What sight can more content a lover's mind
   Than beauty seeming harmless, if not kind?

My words have charmed her, for secure she sleeps,
Though guilty of much wrong done to my love;
And in her slumber, see, she close-eyed weeps:
Dreams often more then waking passions move.
   Plead, sleep, my cause, and make her soft like thee,
   That she in peace may wake and pity me.


Andrew

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