Add to the book of all who wish you well

My wish: that nightmare never break your sleep.

You have your dream. The same imperative spell.

The door. The empty room. The heart's great leap.

The cry. Then if you start awake, and stare,

And night is the world, and flesh is sad on bone,

My second wish for you in that despair

Is a voice to say you have not slept alone.

But sleep, wherever you lie, sleep well. My word

Has been set down against that dream, and signed.

Against the voice you knew but never heard;

The colors never quite recalled to mind;

the hand that you are always about to take

In the nightmare story just before the end

That flings you into terror wide awake.

And last I wish your dream may never descend

To the older rim of darkness under night

Where I have dreamed the man's averted face

That turns, yet never fully into sight.

No sleep but mine need find again this place.