Our foster-nurse of nature is repose

Repose is necessary to great efforts, and he who is never idle, labours in vain!

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

O sleep, O gentle sleep, nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee, that thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down and steep my senses in forgetfulness?

It's kind of a foster-mother or surrogate-mother [situation]. Not that she'll nurse them or anything. But just show them what they are, not a human or dog or something.

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,Feared by their breed and famous by their birth.