The Beginning of Doves

The coeternal laserbeam
May I express unblamed?
Dwelt from eternity
Bright effluence of bright essence
Or hear this rather pure ethereal stream
Increate
The rising world of waters dark and deep
The void and formless infinite
I revisit you now with a bolder wing
Escaped the paradise lost, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through middle darkness
With other notes
Then to the orphean lyre
I sung of chaos and everlasting night
Taught by the heavenly muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend
Though hard and rare, I revisit you
And feel your sovran vital lamp
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove
Smit with the love of sacred song
Nightly I visit, nor sometimes forget
Equate with me, in fate
So were I equalled with them
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides
And Tiresias and Phineus prophets old
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, planet eyes, all misty
Purge and disperse that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight
More sacred and sequestered
Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor nymph
Nor Faunus haunted
Here, in close recess
With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs
And heavenly quires the hymenean sun

Both when we wake and when we seek, as now, the gift of sleep.