Poems (Mary Coleridge)/Poem 192

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CXCII SLEEP
Others may praise thee, Sleep; so will not I. I loathe thee from the bottom of my heart.Thou art a dull and ill-conceivèd lie, To turn quick nature into cunning art.
"The sleeping and the dead are pictures." Yea, I love not pictures eyeless, soulless, still,Mere portraits of the perishable clay, Bereft of reason, passion, strength, and will.
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Others may woo thee, Sleep; so will not I. Dear is each minute of my conscious breath,Hard fate, that, ere the time be come to die, Myself, to live, must nightly mimic death.

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