Sleep And Death.

Robert Crawford 1959 (Bellshill)



Sleep puts sin by, as the grave life's despair;
And though bad dreams in sleep may come, the soul
Is tainted not with error, being then
Beyond the body's shade, as in a sphere
Like that to which death may remove us when
The flesh itself is past pollution too.
It is the waking thought that we must answer,
When the whole man is up, and the will has play;
Not any drowsy essence that contrives
As with an ultramundane faculty
To act within us when the reason's gone,
And that, our temporal government, laid aside,
Our kingdom is left open, as it were,
Without a deputy, to all the worlds,
Whose mystic coursers may by stealth enact
Their wills upon us.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
84

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDCEFGHIJKFHLH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 644
Words 124
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 16

Robert Crawford

Robert Crawford FRSE FBA is a Scottish poet, scholar and critic. He is currently Professor of English at the University of St Andrews.  more…

All Robert Crawford poems | Robert Crawford Books

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