Bleak Is the Night
Clark Ashton SmithBleak is the night and long While slumber waits apart, Refusing this lone heart, These lips forlorn of song. Deep is the night and slow Whose gulf obscurely swarms Mad, somber, faceless forms, Blind masks of bale and woe. The moon’s late-risen ray Through paling panes is shed… . From dreams uncomforted I rouse before the day. Now, ere the morning break, Would that my head found rest Upon thy halcyon breast To sleep, and not to wake.
The speaker has been awake all night — sleeplessness on one side, haunted dreams on the other. No escape either way. By the time the plea to the beloved arrives, you understand what they are being asked to absorb. To sleep, and not to wake tips the ending just past ordinary longing into something more: the longing to simply stop. The beloved becomes not just a person but a place to disappear into.