In sleep the same is ever bound to rage. But flee the divers tribes of birds and vex With sudden wings by night the groves of gods, When in their gentle slumbers they have dreamed Of hawks in chase, aswooping on for fight. Again, the minds of mortals which perform With mighty motions mighty enterprises, Often in sleep will do and dare the same In manner like. Kings take the towns by storm, Succumb to capture, battle on the field, Raise a wild cry as if their throats were cut Even then and there. And many wrestle on And groan with pains, and fill all regions round With mighty cries and wild, as if then gnawed By fangs of panther or of lion fierce. Many amid their slumbers talk about Their mighty enterprises, and have often Enough become the proof of their own crimes. Many meet death; many, as if headlong From lofty mountains tumbling down to earth With all their frame, are frenzied in their fright; And after sleep, as if still mad in mind, They scarce come to, confounded as they are By ferment of their frame. The thirsty man, Likewise, he sits beside delightful spring Or river and gulpeth down with gaping throat Nigh the whole stream. And oft the innocent young, By sleep o'ermastered, think they lift their dress By pail or public jordan and then void The water filtered down their frame entire And drench the Babylonian coverlets, Magnificently bright. Again, those males Into the surging channels of whose years Now first has passed the seed (engendered Within their members by the ripened days) Are in their sleep confronted from without By idol-images of some fair form-- Tidings of glorious face and lovely bloom, Which stir and goad the regions turgid now With seed abundant; so that, as it were With all the matter acted duly out, They pour the billows of a potent stream And stain their garment.