Sleep and Death

Slumber doth oft transfigure: I have seenPlain faces grow quite beautiful in sleep:Death too doth render comely and sereneFaces whereon dwelt frowns and wrinkles deep.In sleep our better selves to us return,Untroubled by the passionate desires,The evil thoughts that in the daytime burn,And eat our hearts out with their baleful fires.O infinite pathos of man's hapless life,That only when unconscious may he gainA truce from that corroding cruel strifeThat makes of life a synonym for pain!Then is not death of all good things the best?Sleep brings short solace, death unending rest.