Song

by DAVID PERKINS

SOFTLY, softly, fall asleep
Like a feather floating down
The silent air, or like a shell
Drifting down the green abyss
To wander in the quiet, deep,
And curtained caverns undersea.

Cease the drill of mind, and leave
Dikes of thought to melt away;
Let the leveed intellect
Flow a delta to the ocean,
And the brain weed wash and sway
With swell and slack of each emotion.

Draw in your blankets like a net
To trap the furred and golden warmth;
And now beyond all clutch and stir
Of tides that touch the brink of sense,
Through shafts of silence, sound the steep
And sunken precipice of sleep.