The little pleasures in life.

How many thousands of my poorest subjects

Are at this hour asleep! O gentle Sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,

And steep my senses in forgetfulness;

Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?

O thou dull God! why liest thou with the vile

In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch,

A watch-case to a common larum-bell?

Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,

Seal up the shipboy's eyes, and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge;

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them

With deaf'ning clamours in the slipp'ry shrouds,

That with the hurly Death itself awakes:

Can'st thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose

To the wet seaboy in an hour so rude,

And in the calmest and the stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a King? Then, happy lowly clown!

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.