University of Virginia Library

1   I WANDER all night in my vision,
Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly step-     ping and stopping,
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,
Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted,      contradictory,
Pausing, gazing, bending, and stopping.
2  How solemn they look there, stretch'd and still!
How quiet they breathe, the little children in their      cradles!
3  The wretched features of ennuyés, the white fea-     tures of corpses, the livid faces of drunkards,      the sick-gray faces of onanists,
The gash'd bodies on battle-fields, the insane in their      strong-door'd rooms, the sacred idiots, the new-     born emerging from gates, and the dying emer-     ging from gates,
The night pervades them and infolds them.
4  The married couple sleep calmly in their bed — he      with his palm on the hip of the wife, and she      with her palm on the hip of the husband,
The sisters sleep lovingly side by side in their bed,
The men sleep lovingly side by side in theirs,
And the mother sleeps, with her little child carefully      wrap't.
5   The blind sleep, and the deaf and dumb sleep,
The prisoner sleeps well in the prison — the run-away      son sleeps;
The murderer that is to be hung next day — how does      he sleep?
And the murder'd person — how does he sleep?
6  The female that loves unrequited sleeps,
And the male that loves unrequited sleeps,
The head of the money-maker that plotted all day      sleeps,
And the enraged and treacherous dispositions — all,      all sleep.