If I could only lay me down to rest.
⁠Crossing my weary hands upon my breast,
And shut my troubled eyes without a fear,
⁠Knowing that they would never open here —
How blissful it must be, both worlds in sight,
⁠To say my tired good-night.

If only, from the fretting cares of Time,
⁠To truths eternal I at once may climb,
No longer count the graves whereon I tread,
⁠But in one moment be all comforted —
If such could be, what joy, in upward flight,
⁠To sing my tired good-night.
 
I watch the sweetest flowers throughout the morn,
⁠I look, and lo! at noontide they are gone;
The wings of sorrow are forever spread;
⁠I weep, but weeping brings not back my dead.
If God would but reveal the breaking light.
⁠How sweet to say good-night.

This flooding tide of yearnings will not cease;
⁠I cannot reach to touch the lips of Peace;
Nor can I gather to my sobbing heart
⁠The white-winged angels God has set apart,
Yet haply I may find them all in sight
⁠After some tired good-night.

What wonder, then, that I should long to rest,
⁠Crossing my weary hands upon my breast;
To shut my troubled eyes without a fear,
⁠Knowing that they would never open here;
To say to earth, with heaven alone in sight,
⁠My rapturous good-night.