Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 3.djvu/351

Rh soul, beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like her self, and to discourse in a strain above mortality.

XII. We term sleep a death; and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life. 'Tis indeed a part of life that best expresseth death; for every man truely lives, so long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties of himself. Themistocles, therefore, that slew his Soldier in his sleep, was a merciful Executioner: 'tis a kind of punishment the mildness of no laws hath invented: I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it. It is that death by which we may be literally said to dye daily; a death which Adam dyed before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point between life and death: in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an half adieu unto the World, and take my farwel in a Colloquy with.

The night is come, like to the day, Depart not Thou, great, away. Let not my sins, black as the night, Eclipse the lustre of Thy light: Keep still in my Horizon; for to me The Sun makes not the day, but Thee. Thou, Whose nature cannot sleep, On my temples Gentry keep; Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes. Whose eyes are open while mine close. Let no dreams my head infest, But such as Jacob's temples blest. While I do rest, my Soul advance; Make my sleep a holy trance; That I may, my rest being wrought. Awake into some holy thought; And with as active vigour run My course, as doth the nimble Sun. Sleep is a death; O make me try. By sleeping, what it is to die; And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed. However I rest, great, let me Awake again at last with Thee; And thus assur'd, behold I lie Securely, or to awake or die.