[Verse 1] Midnight kitchen, candle guttering low, Lady Macbeth pours courage the color of wine, She spiked the possets — those warm bedtime drinks — Poured them thick for the grooms, the servants who guard the door, Now they're snoring, drunk and dead to the world, Owl screeched once, she calls it the fatal bellman, Ringing the king his last goodnight. [Verse 2] She says, low, almost ashamed of the thought: Had Duncan not looked, sleeping, so like her own father, She'd have done it herself, no hand but hers, The dagger would've sung its one cold note. So she waited instead, bold on borrowed wine, Listening for footsteps, listening for blood. [Chorus] Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep — The voice rang out through every room in the house, Innocent sleep, the knitter who mends the torn sleeve of worry, Gone now, stitched shut, never to open again, Sleep no more, the house itself won't rest, Macbeth does murder sleep. [Verse 3] He stumbles in, hands painted past the wrist, Daggers still clutched like they've grown from his skin, "I have done the deed," he whispers, hollow, Then tells her of voices, two men praying in their sleep, One said "God bless us," the other said "Amen," And he, with murder fresh on his fingers, Could not push the word Amen past his own teeth. [Verse 4] "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand?" — no, he answers himself, His one hand would turn the whole green sea Incarnadine, which simply means blood-red, Making the water as guilty as he is, Rose-tinted, ruined, no ocean big enough. [Chorus] Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep — The voice rang out through every room in the house, Innocent sleep, the knitter who mends the torn sleeve of worry, Gone now, stitched shut, never to open again, Sleep no more, the house itself won't rest, Macbeth does murder sleep. [Verse 5] She grabs the daggers he forgot to leave, Calls him infirm of purpose — weak-willed, soft, Marches back to smear the sleeping grooms, Paint them guilty while her husband shakes. Then — knock, knock — someone's at the gate, Macbeth just stares, studies his own red hands Like they belong to someone else entirely. [Bridge] "A little water clears us of this deed," She says it light, like rinsing off a plate, But water's thin, and guilt is awfully patient — Five acts from now that same small hand Will scrub at midnight, certain it's not clean, One little water promise, come back round to haunt her. [Outro] Sleep no more, the knocking will not stop, Blood on the hands, a voice inside the walls, Macbeth does murder sleep — Remember that, long after the candle falls.
← Act 2, Scene 1: Is This a Dagger | Act 2, Scene 3: Knocking at the Gate →