S12E5: Delia 45, “Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night” by Samuel Daniel

May 8, 2023

For the twelfth season of the Well-Read Poem, we are reading four poems by William Shakespeare, whose genius as a lyric poet is best appreciated in his collection of 154 sonnets. Shakespeare is of course the supreme dramatic poet of the English language; yet if only his sonnets and shorter poems had survived out of his great body of work, it is not too much to say that he may still have enjoyed a certain literary immortality, albeit of a different sort. In addition to four sonnets by Shakespeare, we will be taking a look at two sonnets by fellow Elizabethan poets, to give a sense of the popularity of this verse form in Shakespeare's day.

Today's poem is Delia 45, "Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night," by Samuel Daniel. Poem begins at timestamp 10:47. 

Delia 45

by Samuel Daniel

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,

Brother to Death, in silent darkness born:

Relieve my languish, and restore the light,

With dark forgetting of my cares, return;

And let the day be time enough to mourn

The shipwreck of my ill-adventur'd youth:

Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,

Without the torment of the night's untruth.

Cease dreams, th' imagery of our day-desires,

To model forth the passions of the morrow;

Never let rising sun approve you liars,

To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.

Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain;

And never wake to feel the day's disdain.