Written in a Sick Chamber

There, in that bed so closely curtain’d round,
Worn to a shade, and wan with slow decay,
A father sleeps! Oh hush’d be every sound!
Soft may we breathe the midnight hours away!

He stirs—yet still he sleeps. May heavenly dreams
Long o’er his smooth and settled pillow rise;
Till thro’ the shutter’d pane the morning streams,
And on the hearth the glimmering rush-light dies.