Poetry Blog No 205 Sleep

SLEEP

In this poem sleep is personified. Personification in poetry seems a natural function of the imagination, making an idea or in this case a state of being seem more "concrete". This is probably because our imagination relates most easily to a "person". Indeed language itself contains a lot hidden "personification"- rivers, for instance, "run" have a "bed" and even a "head" and a "mouth".

The poem is in four stanzas of eight lines each with a rhyme scheme- ABABCDCD. Each line is a catalectic trochaic tetrameter which sounds very impressive but it simple means four feet (tetrameter) of trochees - STRESSED syllable followed by an unstressed one- Going with last golden glowing. Catalectic simply refers to the loss of one short syllable at the end of the line- in other words "cut off" by the largely single syllable rhymes (or "male" rhymes- who knows why they are called that!)

SLEEP

Down wide vastness of the west,

Going with last golden glowing,

Now proud sun sinks to its rest;

In the dusk the grey is growing.

Light is leaving. Day is done.

Wheeling flocks of far birds fly;

Back to leafy trees they come

Over twilight's fading sky.

Then unseen another flies

Down new evening's dark paths-

Sleep, with deep dream in her eyes,

Following a trail of stars.

Gently she spreads sleepy sighs,

With her cloak of deep, dark hues:

Feather-soft on heavy eyes,

Roses, violets, and blues.

Angel Sleep, with wings of night,

Over creatures of the day,

Sweeps past fields of dying light,

Spiriting bright sight away.

Over shadow scenes she glides,

Over all the darkened earth,

Where the silent owl swift-rides

And night's quietness has its birth.

"Peace and rest and rest and peace,"

Softly sing her lullabies,

"Let the worn-out day now cease;

Calmly close your weary eyes.

Fly with me to lands of dreams,

Ride the pathways of the deep,

Till you wake with day's new beams;

Rise anew refreshed from sleep."