Sleep

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

From “Second Part of Henry IV.,” Act III. Sc. 1.

KING HENRY.—How many thousand of my poorest subjects

Are at this hour asleep!—O sleep! O gentle sleep!

Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,

And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumbers

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile,

In loathsome beds, and leav’st the kingly couch

A watch-case, or a common ’larum-bell?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them

With deafening clamors in the slippery clouds,

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?

Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;

And in the calmest and most stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down;

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.