Sleep I ever, sleep I never,
God receive my soul for ever.
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels lie outspread,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on.”
This is very curious. One may well ask where St. Peter wrote the quotation given in the eighth line. “That heaven hath bote” signifies “that hath bid or prayed for heaven.”
The prayer, or formula, is very old. In the “Towneley Mysteries,” belonging to the beginning of the sixteenth century at the very latest date that can be given, for they are sacred Mysteries which ceased to be performed after the Reformation, in the scene where the shepherds keep their watch by night on the eve of the Nativity, the third shepherd says—
“For ferd we be fryght a crosse let us kest