When wearied and worried, fatigued and opprest,
How welcome and soothing and cheering is rest-
Rest peaceful, restoring, apart from all dread
At home, with home comforts, asleep on my bed.
O Somnus! thy blessings insure my delight,
And I welcome thy visit to me every night;
Then rising refreshed, both in body and mind,
All wearisome feelings I cast to the wind.
Sometimes drowsy Morpheus steals into my pew,
But his opiates there I detest and eschew;
'Tis stupid to slumber, 'tis hateful to nod,
'Tis sinful to sleep in the temple of God.
While at church keep awake, while at work do the same,
To slumber at either is reckoned a shame;
Let work have the time that's allotted to such,
And neither to work nor to sleep give too much.
The earner of bread by the sweat of his brow,
At the anvil, the bench, with the spade or the plough,
He, far above others, enjoys with a zest
The nature-restoring, sweet blessing of rest.
The sin-burdened conscience, the care-troubled mind
Too oft prove a hind'rance this blessing to find;
And the wounded and sick, racked with torturing pain,
Oft long for sweet sleep, and yet seek it in vain.
Do you wish to see beautiful, calm, holy sleep?
Then look at that baby whose sentinels keep
A watch o'er the little one takint its rest
In its cradle, or held to its fond mother's breast.
Thus God saves his loved ones from dread and alarms,
While safely they sleep in his own loving arms;
Rest here and hereafter he richly imparts
To all who permit him to dwell in their hearts.
Sweet sleep, richest boon to the wearied one given,
Little halts to take rest on the march up to heaven;
This blessing of sleep every night let me crave,
Until at the last I take rest in my grave.