Each night the soul is like a bird from cage set free,
To wander. Judge and judgment, then, it does not see.
By night the pris’ner loses sense of bars, of chains;
By night the monarch knows no state, no pomp retains;
The merchant counts no more, in sleep, his gains and loss;
The prince and peasant, equal, on their couches toss.
The Gnostic is so e’en by day, when wide awake;
For God hath said: “Let quietude care of him take.”
Asleep to all the things of earth by night, by day,
As pen in writer’s hand he doth his guide obey.—