Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 311=392.= the Blessing of Sleep
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"God bless the man who first invented sleep!" So Sancho Panza said, and so say I: And bless him, also, that he didn't keep His great discovery to himself; nor try To make it—as the lucky fellow might— A close monopoly by patent-right!
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'Tis beautiful to leave the world a while For the soft visions of the gentle night; And free, at last, from mortal care or guile, To live as only in the angels' sight, In Sleep's sweet realm so cosily shut in, Where, at the worst, we only dream of sin!
So let us sleep, and give the Maker praise. I like the lad, who, when his father thought To clip his morning nap by hackneyed praise Of vagrant worm by early songster caught, Cried, "Served him right!—it's not at all surprising; The worm was punished, sir, for early rising!"
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