The shades descend, and midnight o’er the world Expands her sable wings. Great nature droops Thro’ all her works. Now happy he whose toil 385 Has o’er his languid powerless limbs diffus’d A pleasing lassitude: He not in vain Invokes the gentle deity of dreams. His powers the most voluptuously dissolve In soft repose: On him the balmy dews 390 Of sleep with double nutriment descend. But would you sweetly waste the blank of night In deep oblivion; or on fancy’s wings Visit the paradise of happy dreams, And waken chearful as the lively morn; 395 Oppress not nature sinking down to rest With feasts too late, too solid, or too full. But be the first concoction half-matur’d, Ere you to mighty indolence resign Your passive faculties. He from the toils 400 And troubles of the day to heavier toil Retires, whom trembling from the tower that rocks Amid the clouds, or Calpe’s hideous height, The busy dæmons hurl, or in the main O’erwhelm, or bury struggling under ground. 405 Not all a monarch’s luxury the woes Can counterpoise, of that most wretched man, Whose nights are shaken with the frantic fits Of wild Orestes; whose delirious brain, Stung by the furies, works with poisoned thought! 410 While pale and monstrous painting shocks the soul; And mangled consciousness bemoans itself For ever torn; and chaos floating round. What dreams presage, what dangers these or those Portend to sanity, tho’ prudent seers 415 Reveal’d of old, and men of deathless fame; We would not to the superstitious mind Suggest new throbs, new vanities of fear. ’Tis ours to teach you from the peaceful night To banish omens, and all restless woes. 420