Analysis of The Sleeper
Edgar Allan Poe 1809 (Boston) – 1849 (Baltimore)
At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!- and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!
O, lady bright! can it be right-
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop-
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully- so fearfully-
Above the closed and fringed lid
'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come O'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-
Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFFGGGHI JJCCKKDDLLMMXXIINNH OOODDPPP OOOQQRRHXSSSTTUU |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1100111 11010101 110010101 1110101 01010111 01010101 110100 01001010 01010101 01010101 10010111 01010011 1011101 01010111 01110101 11010111 0110100 11011111 11010101 01011011 10010101 0110101 11110001 01010100 110011 0101011 1111111 110010101 1101101 11011111 10111101 111110111 01011101 1111111 10111111 011101 01011101 11010111 101001101 110111110 11111100 11111111 11010101 1011111 11111101 11110111 11010101 10010101 10111101 11111111 01101001 010100101 101100100 110101 01110111 01101101 11111101 11111101 10111111 11011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,366 |
Words | 375 |
Sentences | 25 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 17, 19, 8, 16 |
Lines Amount | 60 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 399 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 93 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 1:54 min read
- 466 Views
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"The Sleeper" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/8473/the-sleeper>.
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