The Sleepy Road For Peaceful Sleep

The Sleepy Road is a soothing story about walking YOUR country gravel road in your mind ... leading you to inner peace and serenity ... leading to a peaceful nights' sleep. This story was written in 1917 and published the The Atlantic. This reading of the story is done with deep gratitude for myself and others who will enjoy it time after time after time.... Enjoy!

Transcript

It is hard for me to remember now that my knowledge of the sleepy road gained so many years ago came only to me by the chance bit of advice dropped by a wise kind weary old doctor as he shuffled at midnight down the corridor of the silent hospital whatever was the errand of life or death that had called him in such haste he had time to stop and give me a friendly word although I a small and incorrigibly sleepless patient was sitting bold upright among the pillows in defiance of all of his orders and was staring wide-eyed into the hot pain haunted dark and the doctor said to me in a quiet tone you think you are never going to be able to sleep again don't you well shut your eyes and do just what I tell you think of some road that you know well a good long road that winds and turns and shows you water and woods and hills keep your eyes tight shut and travel along it in memory as slowly as you can recall every sight and sound and perfume as you pass by I have such a road of my own the one I used to walk to school when I was just eight years old I have started out on it a hundred times when I thought I could not sleep but I never get very far I come just about to the old stone bridge over Damon's Creek or perhaps to the swimming hole where the willows dip into the brown water but I never reached the on many and many a night since then I have traveled my own sleepy road and thank the dear old doctor at every step of the way when obstinate wakefulness will yield to nothing else I have only to close my reluctant eyes firmly and set off I go first down the street that leads from the house where I was born an overgrown country town street known as the Avenue lined with tall lank houses of the middle Victorian period the broad lawns beginning to be submerged under the rising tide of aggressive bungalows I pass at last a corner where there stands deserted and dropping to decay an enormous dwelling whose millionaire builder now long since dead followed no school of architecture the edge of his garden still shows a few red geraniums and purple colors and is guarded by weather-stained iron deer the flora and the fauna of a forgotten art beyond these Montessori's the street turns abruptly and it drops swiftly downhill and becomes a road the sleepy road at last as I hear the cool rustle of the trees on either hand and see their sharp shadows lying across the white dusty way the first feeling of drowsiness comes and begins to weigh down the eyelids that have so far been kept shut only by main strength of will there is another sound to be heard presently the thin trickling of water that comes splashing out from below a great boulder joins a tiny stream and runs below a rude makeshift bridge sometimes I have it winter when I pass across that bridge so that the little ravine is full of drifted snow with the black arches of bent ferns crowned with white and tall leafless trees standing above against a blue and cloudless sky or sometimes it is spring with dry leaves blowing before warm April winds with the smell of wild crabapple in the air and with white blood roots starring the steep brown banks but whatever the season I stopped to lean upon the bark covered rail to sniff the sweet fresh woodsy air and to yawn for the first time beyond the bridge there is another turn where I come out at the edge of the river the silent mile-wide stream that waking people would call our greatest inland waterway but that to me stands only for the river of sleep it is always late daylight when I set out on my pilgrimage it is shadowy twilight when I stand upon the bridges with perhaps a little thin new moon behind the treetops but it is full flooding moonlight when I reach the river shore the wide quiet expanse is a sheet of polished silver broken into bars of shattered splendor where the water comes rippling in at my feet that road stretches away along the bank a far-flung white ribbon looping over hills and around the little bays it finally slants up the wooded bluff and disappears I follow it more and more slowly now past the little marshy harbor where the cattails rustle together in the night wind past the neat square fields that checkerboard the rising slope through a tiny sleeping town where the windows are blank and blind in the white light and where only one drowsy dog raises his head as he lies upon a doorstep and barks at me in friendly greeting as I go by his gate all the world is asleep and so shall I soon be outside the town is a high bridge spanning a tributary River a good-sized hasty tumbling stream that shrinks into insignificance beside the silent tremendous flood in which it finally loses itself there are trees grouped at the head of the bridge straight white ghostly sycamores then denser woods that hide river and fields as the way goes steeply up a breathtaking hill it was bright moonlight when I passed the town it was deep black shadow in the wooded hollow but when I come out upon the broad crowning plateau where there are neither trees nor houses nor view of the river the moon has gone and above the level fields I see only a wide wide sea of stars of all the miles of sleepy road this is the stretch that I love the best it is along this that I pass so slowly oh so slowly with sleep but one turn of the road away whatever season I choose to have it when I pass the little bridge or the river or the town whether it is winter or gay spring or glowing autumn it is always high midsummer when I come here the gigantic sprawling length of the scorpion hangs and it seems nearly halfway round the horizon it's glowing and terrace regards me with a friendly ruddy eye above is clear-faced Vega the widespread wings of the swan the hovering eagle and the broad white river of the Milky Way with a tourist and the dipper swinging low before me but I have not time to greet them all the plateau is not alas so wide as that the way dips once more and passes down a long curving hill there is another turn at the foot guarded by a great round oak tree whose shadow casts a pool of blackness across the path beyond the turn I know is the broad river again with a fringe of silver poplars along the shore sleep has walked close behind me for this long time and now slips a hand into mine I can hear the cool patter of moving aspen leaves I come nearer and nearer but I do not pass the turn I know that beyond the way stretches far and straight and white across more valleys and wooded hills that on the farthest height the roofs and spires of a distant city stand black against the stars but I never see them for as the dear good doctor said though I travel the sleepy road innumerable times I can never come to its end it never comes to its end because the story begins again and again it is hard for me to remember now that my knowledge of the sleepy road gained so many years ago came only to me by the chance bit of advice dropped by a wise kind weary old doctor as he shuffled at midnight down the corridor of the silent hospital whatever was the errand of life or death that had called him in such haste he had time to stop and give me a friendly word although I a small and incorrigibly sleepless patient was sitting bold upright among the pillows and defiance of all of his orders and was staring wide-eyed into the hot pain haunted dark and the doctor said to me in a quiet tone you think you are never going to be able to sleep again don't you well shut your eyes and do just what I tell you think of some road that you know well a good long road that winds and turns and shows you water and woods and hills keep your eyes tight shut and travel along it in memory as slowly as you can recall every sight and sound and perfume as you pass by I have such a road of my own the one I used to walk to school when I was just eight years old I have started out on it a hundred times when I thought I could not sleep but I never get very far I come just about to the old stone bridge over Damon's Creek or perhaps to the swimming hole where the willows dip into the brown water but I never reached the end on many and many a night since then I have traveled my own sleepy road and thank the dear old doctor at every step of the way when obstinate wakefulness will yield to nothing else I have only to close my reluctant eyes firmly and set off I go first down the street that leads from the house where I was born an overgrown country town street known as the Avenue lined with tall lank houses of the middle Victorian period the broad lawns beginning to be submerged under the rising tide of aggressive bungalows I pass at last a corner where there stands deserted and dropping to decay an enormous dwelling whose millionaire builder now long since dead followed no school of architecture the edge of his garden still shows a few red geraniums and purple colors and is guarded by weather stained iron deer the flora and the fauna of a forgotten art beyond these Montessori's the street turns abruptly and it drops swiftly downhill and becomes a road the sleepy road at last as I hear the cool rustle of the trees on either hand and see their sharp shadows lying across the white dusty way the first feeling of drowsiness comes and begins to weigh down the eyelids that have so far been kept shut only by main strength of will there is another sound to be heard presently the thin trickling of water that comes splashing out from below a great boulder joins a tiny stream and runs below a rude makeshift bridge sometimes I have it winter when I pass across that bridge so that the little ravine is full of drifted snow with the black arches of bent ferns crowned with white and tall leafless trees standing above against a blue and cloudless sky or sometimes it is spring with dry leaves blowing before warm April winds with the smell of wild crabapple in the air and with white blood roots starring the steep brown banks but whatever this season I stopped to lean upon the bark covered rail to sniff the sweet fresh woodsy air and to yawn for the first time beyond the bridge there is another turn where I come out at the edge of the river the silent mile wide stream that waking people would call our greatest inland waterway but that to me stands only for the river of sleep it is always late daylight when I set out on my pilgrimage it is shadowy twilight when I stand upon the bridges with perhaps a little thin new moon behind the treetops but it is full flooding moonlight when I reach the river shore the wide quiet expanse is a sheet of polished silver broken into bars of shattered splendor where the water comes rippling in at my feet that road stretches away along the bank a far-flung white ribbon looping over hills and around the little bays it finally slants up the wooded bluff and disappears I follow it more and more slowly now past the little marshy harbor where the cat tails rustle together in the night wind past the neat square fields that checkerboard the rising slope through a tiny sleeping town where the windows are blank and blind in the white light and where only one drowsy dog raises his head as he lies upon a doorstep and barks at me in friendly greeting as I go by his gate all the world is asleep and so shall I soon be outside the town is a high bridge spanning a tributary River a good-sized hasty tumbling stream that shrinks into insignificance beside the silent tremendous flood in which it finally loses itself there are trees grouped at the head of the bridge straight white ghostly sycamores then denser woods that hide river and fields as the way goes steeply up a breathtaking hill it was bright moonlight when I passed the it was deep black shadow in the wooded hollow but when I come out upon the broad crowning plateau where there are neither trees nor houses nor view of the river the moon has gone and above the level fields I see only a wide wide sea of stars of all the miles of the sleepy road this is the stretch that I love the best it is along this that I pass so slowly oh so slowly with sleep but one turn of the road away whatever season I choose to have it when I pass the little bridge or the river or the town whether it is winter or gay spring or glowing autumn it is always high midsummer when I come here the gigantic sprawling length of the scorpion hangs and it seems nearly halfway round the horizon it's glowing and terrace regards me with a friendly ruddy eye above is clear-faced Vega the widespread wings of the Swan the hovering Eagle and the broad white river of the Milky Way with Arcturus and the dipper swinging low before me but I have not time to greet them all the plateau is not alas so wide as that the way dips once more and passes down a long curving hill there is another turn at the foot guarded by a great round oak tree whose shadow casts a pool of blackness across the path beyond the turn I know is the broad river again with a fringe of silver poplars along the shore sleep has walked close behind me for this long time and now slips a hand into mine I can hear the cool patter of moving aspen leaves I come nearer and nearer but I do not pass the turn I know that beyond the way stretches far and straight and white across more valleys and wooded hills that on the farthest height the roofs and spires of a distant city stand black against the stars but I never see them for as the dear good doctor said though I travel the sleepy road innumerable times I can never come to its end it never comes to its end because the story begins again and again it is hard for me to remember now that my knowledge of the sleepy road gained so many years ago came only to me by the chance bit of advice dropped by wise kind weary old doctor as he shuffled at midnight down the corridor of the silent hospital whatever was the errand of life or death that had called him in such haste he had time to stop and give me a friendly word although I a small and incorrigibly sleepless patient was sitting bold upright among the pillows in defiance of all of his orders and was staring wide-eyed into the hot pain haunted dark and the doctor said to me in a quiet tone you think you are never going to be able to sleep again don't you well shut your eyes and do just what I tell you think of some road that you know well a good long road that winds and turns and shows you water and woods and hills keep your eyes tight shut and travel along it in memory as slowly as you can recall every sight and sound and perfume as you pass by I have such a road of my own the one I used to walk to school when I was just eight years old I have started out on it a hundred times when I thought I could not sleep but I never get very far I come just about to the old stone bridge over Damon's Creek or perhaps to the swimming hole to the swimming hole where the willows dip into the brown water but I never reached the end on many and many a night since then I have traveled my own sleepy road and thank the dear old doctor at every step of the way when obstinate wakefulness will yield to nothing else I have only to close my reluctant eyes firmly and set off I go first down the street that leads from the house where I was born an overgrown country town street known as the avenue lined with tall lank houses of the middle Victorian period the broad lawns beginning to be submerged under the rising tide of aggressive bungalows I pass at last a corner where there stands deserted and dropping to decay an enormous dwelling whose millionaire builder now long since dead followed no school of architecture the edge of his garden still shows a few red geraniums and purple colors and is guarded by weather-stained iron deer the flora and the fauna of a forgotten art beyond these Montessori's the street turns abruptly and it drops swiftly downhill and becomes a road the sleepy road at last as I hear the cool rustle of the trees on either hand as I hear the cool rustle of the trees on either hand and see their sharp shadows lying across the white dusty way the first feeling of drowsiness comes and begins to weigh down the eyelids that have so far been kept shut only by main strength of will there is another sound to be heard presently the thin trickling of water that comes splashing out from below a great boulder joins a tiny stream and runs below a rude makeshift bridge sometimes I have it winter winter when I pass across that bridge so that the little ravine is full of drifted snow with the black arches of bent ferns crowned with white and tall leafless trees standing above against a blue and cloudless sky or sometimes it is spring with dry leaves blowing before warm april winds with the smell of wild crabapple in the air and with white blood roots roots starring the steep brown banks but whatever the season I stop to lean upon the bark covered rail to sniff the sweet fresh woodsy air and to yawn for the first time beyond the bridge there is another turn where I come out at the edge of the river the silent mile-wide stream that waking people would call our greatest inland waterway but that to me stands only for the river of sleep it is always late daylight when I set out on my pilgrimage it is shadowy twilight when I stand upon the bridges with perhaps a little thin new moon behind the treetops but it is full flooding moonlight when I reach the river shore the wide quiet expanse is a sheet of polished silver broken into bars of shattered splendor where the water comes rippling in at my feet that road stretches away along the bank a far-flung white ribbon looping over hills and around the little bays it finally slants up the wooded bluff and disappears I follow it more and more slowly now past the little marshy harbor where the cattails rustle together in the night wind past the neat square fields that checkerboard the rising slope through a tiny sleeping town where the windows are blank and blind in the white light and where only one drowsy dog raises his head as he lies upon a doorstep and barks at me in friendly greeting as I go by his gate all the world is asleep and so shall I soon be outside the town is a high bridge spanning a tributary river a good-sized hasty tumbling stream that shrinks into insignificance beside the silent tremendous flood in which it finally loses itself there are trees grouped at the head of the bridge straight white ghostly sycamores then denser woods that hide river and fields as the way goes steeply up a breathtaking hill hill it was bright moonlight when I passed the town it was deep black shadow in the wooded hollow but when I come out upon the broad crowning plateau where there are neither trees nor houses nor view of the river the moon has gone and above the level fields I see only a wide wide sea of stars of all the miles of the sleepy road this is the stretch that I love the best it is along this that I pass so slowly oh so slowly with sleep but one turn of the road away away whatever season I choose to have it when I pass the little bridge or the river or the town whether it is winter or gay spring or glowing autumn it is always high midsummer when I come here the gigantic sprawling length of the scorpion hangs and it seems nearly halfway round the horizon its glowing antares regards me with a friendly ruddy eye above is clear-faced vega the widespread wings of the swan the hovering eagle and the broad white river of the milky way with acturus and the dipper swinging low before me before me but I have not time to greet them all the plateau is not alas so wide as that the way dips once more and passes down a long curving hill there is another turn at the foot guarded by a great round oak tree whose shadow casts a pool of blackness across the path beyond the turn I know is the broad river again with a fringe of silver poplars along the shore sleep has walked close behind me for this long time and now slips a hand into mine I can hear the cool patter of moving aspen leaves I come nearer and nearer but I do not pass the turn I know that beyond the way stretches far and straight and white across more valleys and wooded hills that on the farthest height the roofs and spires of a distant city stand black against the stars but I never see them for as the dear good doctor said though I travel the sleepy road road innumerable times I can never come to its end it never comes to its end because the story begins again and again it is hard for me to remember now that my knowledge of the sleepy road gained so many years ago came only to me by the chance bit of advice dropped by a wise kind weary old doctor as he shuffled at midnight down the corridor of the silent hospital whatever was the errand of life or death that had called him in such haste he had time to stop and give me a friendly word although I a small and incorrigibly sleepless patient was sitting bold upright among the pillows in defiance of all of his orders and was staring wide-eyed into the hot pain haunted dark and the doctor said to me in a quiet tone you think you are never going to be able to sleep again don't you well shut your eyes and do just what I tell you think of some road that you know well a good long road that winds and turns and shows you water and woods and hills and hills keep your eyes tight shut and travel along it in memory as slowly as you can recall every sight and sound and perfume as you pass by I have such a road of my own the one I used to walk to school when I was just eight years old I have started out on it a hundred times when I thought I could not sleep sleep but I never get very far I come just about to the old stone bridge over Damon's Creek or perhaps to the swimming hole where the willows dip into the brown water but I never reached the end and on many and many a night since then I have traveled my own sleepy road and thank the dear old doctor at every step of the way when obstinate wakefulness will yield to nothing else I have only to close my reluctant eyes firmly and set off I go first down the street that leads from the house where I was born an overgrown country town street known as the avenue avenue lined with tall lank houses of the middle Victorian period the broad lawns beginning to be submerged under the rising tide of aggressive bungalows I pass at last a corner where there stands deserted and dropping to decay an enormous dwelling whose millionaire builder now long since dead followed no school of architecture the edge of his garden still shows a few red geraniums and purple colors and is guarded by weather-stained iron deer the flora and the fauna of a forgotten art of a forgotten art beyond these Montessoris the street turns abruptly and it drops swiftly downhill and becomes a road the sleepy road at last as I hear the cool rustle of the trees on either hand and see their sharp shadows lying across the white dusty way the first feeling of drowsiness comes and begins to weigh down the eyelids that have so far been kept shut only by main strength of will there is another sound to be heard presently the thin trickling of water that comes splashing out from below a great boulder joins a tiny stream and runs below a rude makeshift bridge sometimes I have it winter when I pass across that bridge so that the little ravine is full of drifted snow drifted snow with the black arches of bent ferns crowned with white and tall leafless trees standing above against a blue and cloudless sky or sometimes it is spring with dry leaves blowing before warm April winds with the smell of wild crabapple in the air and with white blood roots starring the steep brown banks but whatever the season I stop to lean upon the bark covered rail rail to sniff the sweet fresh woodsy air and to yawn for the first time beyond the bridge there is another turn where I come out at the edge of the river the silent mile-wide stream that waking people would call our greatest inland waterway but that to me stands only for the river of sleep it is always late daylight when I set out on my pilgrimage it is shadowy twilight when I stand upon the bridges with perhaps a little thin new moon behind the treetops but it is full flooding moonlight when I reach the river shore the wide quiet expanse is a sheet of polished silver broken into bars of shattered splendor where the water comes rippling in at my feet that road stretches away along the bank a far-flung white ribbon looping over hills and around the little bays it finally slants up the wooded bluff and disappears I follow it more and more slowly now past the little marshy harbor where the cattails rustle together in the night wind past the neat square fields that checkerboard the rising slope through a tiny sleeping town where the windows are blank and blind in the white light and where only one drowsy dog raises his head as he lies upon a doorstep and barks at me in friendly greeting as I go by his gate all the world is asleep and so shall I soon be outside the town is a high bridge spanning a tributary river a good-sized hasty tumbling stream that shrinks into insignificance beside the silent tremendous flood in which it finally loses itself there are trees grouped at the head of the bridge straight white ghostly sycamores then denser woods that hide river and fields as the way goes steeply up a breathtaking hill it was bright moonlight when I passed the town it was deep black shadow in the wooded hollow but when I come out upon the broad crowning plateau where there are neither trees nor houses nor view of the river the moon has gone and above the level fields I see only a wide wide sea of stars of all the miles of the sleepy road this is the stretch that I love the best it is along this that I pass so slowly oh so slowly with sleep but one turn of the road away whatever season I choose to have it when I pass the little bridge or the river or the town whether it is winter or gay spring or glowing autumn it is always high midsummer when I come here the gigantic sprawling length of the scorpion hangs and it seems nearly halfway round the horizon its glowing antares regards me with a friendly ruddy eye above is clear-faced vega the widespread wings of the swan the hovering eagle and the broad white river of the milky way with acturus and the dipper swinging low before me but I have not time to greet them all the plateau is not alas so wide as that the way dips once more and passes down a long curving hill there is another turn at the foot guarded by a great round oak tree whose shadow casts a pool of blackness across the path beyond the turn I know is the broad river again with a fringe of silver poplars along the shore sleep has walked close behind me for this long time and now slips a hand into mine I can hear the cool patter of moving aspen leaves I come nearer and nearer but I do not pass the turn I know that beyond the way stretches far and straight and white across more valleys and wooded hills that on the farthest height the roofs and spires of a distant city stand black against the stars you

Reviews

Beautiful....