Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham

A Song

1 Morpheus! the humble god, that dwells
  In cottages and smoky cells,
  Hates gilded roofs and beds of down;
  And though he fears no prince’s frown,
  Flies from the circle of a crown:

2 Come, I say, thou powerful god,
  And thy leaden charming rod,
  Dipp’d in the Lethean lake,
  O’er his wakeful temples shake,
  Lest he should sleep, and never wake.

3 Nature, (alas!) why art thou so
  Obligèd to thy greatest foe?
  Sleep that is thy best repast,
  Yet of death it bears a taste,
  And both are the same thing at last.