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The Home Book of Verse — Volume 2

Part 2 — "SLEEP, ANGRY BEAUTY"

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Sleep, angry beauty, sleep and fear not me! For who a sleeping lion dares provoke? It shall suffice me here to sit and see Those lips shut up, that never kindly spoke: What sight can more content a lover's mind Than beauty seeming harmless, if not kind?

My words have charmed her, for secure she sleeps, Though guilty much of wrong done to my love; And in her slumber, see! she close-eyed weeps: Dreams often more than waking passions move. Plead, Sleep, my cause, and make her soft like thee: That she is peace may wake and pity me.

Thomas Campion [?—1619]

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