"Death and his brother Sleep." Quoted (from Shelley) with parallel passages
from Sir T. Browne, Coleridge, and Byron in "N. & Q.," Vol. iv., p. 435.
Add to them the following:
"Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born."
_Samuel Daniel_, Spenser's successor as "voluntary Laureate."
"Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,
Brother to Death."--Fletcher, _Valentinian_.
"The death of each day's life."--Shakspeare, _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 2.
"Teach me to live, that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed."--_Bishop Ken._
"We thought her sleeping when she died;
And dying, when she slept."--_Hood._
"Somne levis, quanquam certissima mortis imago
Consortem cupio te tamen esse tori;
Alma quies, optata, veni, nam sic sine vita
Vivere quam suave est; sic sine morte mori."--_T. Warton._
[_Finely translated by Wolcot._]
"Come, gentle sleep! attend thy vot'ry's pray'r,
And, though Death's image, to my couch repair;
How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie,
And, without dying, oh, how sweet to die!"
"While sleep the weary world reliev'd,
By counterfeiting death revived."--Butler, _Hudibras_.
"Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself!"--Shakspeare, _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 3.
"Nature, alas! why are thou so
Obliged unto thy greatest foe?
Sleep that is thy best repast,
Yet of death it bears a taste,
And both are the same things at last."--Dennis, _Sophonisba_.
"Great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."--Shakspeare, _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 2.