Sleep is supposed to be by Emily Dickinson

Разумный человек         
всегда считает сон
простым смыканьем век.

Но сил неспящих сонм
важнейшею из вех
на двух плечах несом!

Степенный человек
что завтра настаёт
считает за рассвет.

Но утро не пришло!

Аврориным крылом
бессмертье востечёт -
Один со стягом - рад -
Другого - ал наряд -
Вот это дня заря!




[David Preest:
Many of Emily’s poems are about waking to eternal life,
but, despite the last stanza, this one is not. The reader
should not be misled by its grandiose language. It is in fact
a poem of teasing, written as a letter to her father who,
as she told Dr and Mrs Holland (L175), habitually rapped
on her door to wake her. In the letter the poem is prefaced
by the words
‘To my Father –
to whose untiring efforts in my behalf,
I am indebted for my morninghours
– viz – 3.AM to 12. PM. these grateful lines
are inscribed by his aff
                Daughter.’ (L198)
It is to be hoped that 3 am is a playful exaggeration,
in line with her teasing her father as not being included in
‘the souls of sanity’ or ‘the people of degree.’ Anyway the
message in her teasing is that all down the ages
‘the souls of sanity’ have known that sleep time is for sleep,
and that day starts with the arrival of morning at daybreak,
and not in the hours of darkness preceding it. ‘And daybreak,
in case you didn’t know it, dearest papa, is when Aurora
reddens in the East, the place of Eternity.’]

*******************************************
Sleep is supposed to be by Emily Dickinson

Sleep is supposed to be               
By souls of sanity             
The shutting of the eye.       

Sleep is the station grand      
Down which, on either hand      
The hosts of witness stand!    

Morn is supposed to be         
By people of degree            
The breaking of the Day.
       
Morning has not occurred!
      
That shall Aurora be --         
East of Eternity --            
One with the banner gay --      
One in the red array --         
That is the break of Day!