‘You will not sleep, if you lie there a thousand years, until you have opened your hand and yielded that which is not yours to give or to withhold.’
‘I cannot’, she (Lilith) answered, ‘I would if I could, for I am weary, and the shadows of death are gathering about me.’
‘They will gather and gather, but they cannot infold you while yet your hand remains unopened. You may think you are dead, but it will only be a dream; you may think you have come awake, but it will still be only a dream. Open you hand, and you will sleep indeed.’
George MacDonald (1824-1905), Lilith, Chapter 40, 1895.
William Blake “There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find”