Social Commentaries

Michael Angelo in Reply to the Passage upon his Statue of Night Sleeping

by William Wordsworth 1770–1850

From Poetical Works, ed. Knight (1896), vol. VIII

Social Commentaries

Grateful is Sleep, my life, in stone bound fast,
More grateful still: while wrong and shame shall last,
On me can Time no happier state bestow
Than to be left unconscious of the woe.
Ah then, lest you awaken me, speak low.

Grateful is Sleep, more grateful still to be
Of marble; for while shameless wrong and woe
Prevail, ’tis best to neither hear nor see.
Then wake me not, I pray you. Hush, speak low.

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Composed 1806 (Knight, conjectural). Two translations of Michael Angelo's fragment on Sleep.

MLA

Wordsworth, William. “Michael Angelo in Reply to the Passage upon his Statue of Night Sleeping.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/wordsworth/900/.

Chicago

Wordsworth, William. “Michael Angelo in Reply to the Passage upon his Statue of Night Sleeping.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/wordsworth/900/.

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