SONNET
(Keats)

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleas’d eyes, embower’d from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the ‘Amen’ ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.

Then save me, save me, or the passèd day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes, —
Save me, save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;

Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,
And seal the hushèd Casket of my Soul.