Fifty Shades of Slumber: 50 of the best poems about sleep

Written by James Joyce, Sara Teasdale, William Shakespeare and 12 more

Narrated by Richard Mitchley, Gideon Wagner and Ghizela Rowe

Sleep. That most mysterious of times. The unconscious hours.

Everyone needs it. Whether it’s the recommended eight hours, forty winks, cat naps, power naps or other shades of blissful slumber.

Sleep offers a respite from the rigors and challenges of the day. A chance for the brain to process what has happened and bring rest and recuperation before the cycle of daytime activity begins again.

Also, perchance to dream or, if we are unlucky, the visitation of nightmares.

But for some people sleep does not come easy. These can be wakeful hours of frustration or tedium where closing the eyes does not bring the closing of the mind and the slumber so keenly wanted.

Part of the problem, in this increasingly frenetic 24/7 world is that we seem reluctant or unable to switch off enough to recuperate; we might miss something. But slumbered hours bring gains in health that far outweigh transitory loss.

01 - Fifty Shades of Slumber - An Introduction

02 - Rest by Richard Le Gallienne

03 - To Sleep by John Keats

04 - Sleep by James Weldon Johnson

05 - Sleep on Thine Eyes by Hafiz

06 - Ode To Sleep by Thomas Warton

07 - Sleep by Tagore

08 - Sleep Now, Oh Sleep Now by James Joyce

11 - Sonnet XI - To Sleep by Charlotte Smith

12 - Sleeping Together by Katherine Mansfield

13 - Care Charming Sleep by John Fletcher

14 - Sleep by Mirabai

15 - Song VIII - While Ye Deemed Him A Sleeping by William Morris

16 - Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal from The Princess by Alfred Lord Tennyson

17 - Love and Sleep by Algernon Charles Swinburne

18 - Nupital Sleep by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

19 - Celia, Sleeping or SInging by Thomas Stanley

20 - Idea's Mirror. Sonnet XXXVII. Dear Why Should You Command Me To My Rest

21 - The Indian Serenade by Percy Bysshe Shelley

22 - From Dewy Dreams, My Soul Arise by James Joyce

23 - At That Hour When All Things Have Repose by James Joyce

24 - Seal Lullaby by Rudyard Kipling

25 - Bed In Summer by Robert Louis Stevenson

26 - Lullaby by Louisa May Alcott

27 - Dreams by Robert Tannahill

28 - The Dream by John Donne

29 - The Dream by Amy Levy

30 - A Ballad of Dreamland by Algernon Charles Swinburne

31 - Dreamland by Edgar Allen Poe

32 - Angel Spirits of Sleep by Robert Seymour Bridges

33 - For the Bed at Kelmscott by William Morris

34 - A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allen Poe

35 - The Haunting Dream by Victor Plarr

36 - Dreamland by Christina Georgine Rossetti

37 - Hallucination by F S Flint

38 - The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe

39 - Good Night by Edward Thomas

40 - Good Night by Mary Gilmore

41 - My Sister's Sleep by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

42 - The Promise of Sleep by Amy Levy

43 - When Day Is Done by Tagore

44 - A Sleepless Night by Alfred Austin

45 - The Day is Done by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

46 - Sonnet XXVII - Weary with Toil by William Shakespeare

47 - The End of the Day by Katharine Tynan

48 - Sleepless by Sara Teasdale

49 - What of the Darkness by Richard Le Gallienne

50 - The Owl Disturbs the Bard's Sleep by Dafydd ap Gwilym

51 - Insomnia by James Thomson

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Copyright Group
• Release date: Jan 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781839676383

James Joyce

James Joyce (1882–1941) was an Irish poet, novelist, and short story writer, considered to be one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. His most famous works include Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939).