If you would like to use our texts and translations, please click here for more information.
Text
Sleep
English source:
John Fletcher
Come, sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving
Lock me in delight awhile;
Let some pleasing dreams beguile
All my fancies, that from thence
There may steal an influence,
All my powers of care bereaving.
Tho’ but a shadow, but a sliding,
Let me know some little joy,
We, that suffer long annoy,
Are contented with a thought
Thro’ an idle fancy wrought:
O let my joys have some abiding.
Lock me in delight awhile;
Let some pleasing dreams beguile
All my fancies, that from thence
There may steal an influence,
All my powers of care bereaving.
Tho’ but a shadow, but a sliding,
Let me know some little joy,
We, that suffer long annoy,
Are contented with a thought
Thro’ an idle fancy wrought:
O let my joys have some abiding.
Composer
Peter Warlock
Philip Arnold Heseltine, known by the pseudonym Peter Warlock, was a British composer and music critic.