Elizabeth Akers Allen (pen name, Florence Percy; October 9, 1832 – August 7, 1911) was an American poet and journalist.

She came to Portland, Maine in 1855, and a volume of her fugitive poems appeared in that city just before her marriage to sculptor Paul Akers, whom she accompanied to Italy, and buried there.

[4]Allen is best known for the first couplet of her sentimental poem "Rock me to sleep" (1859), which was written during her time in Europe and first published in the Saturday Evening Post of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Though it is not considered her finest work, it was very popular during the American Civil War[3] and quoted in the (unpublished) manuscript Mark Twain's No.

For some years, Allen was forced to dispute its authorship with a number of claimants after the poem was set to music by Ernest Leslie and became a hit song.

[4] Thirdly, in 1865[3] or 1866,[4] she married Elijah M. Allen and they lived in Richmond, Virginia, and Ridgewood, New Jersey, before settling in New York City.