To Sleep
by John Keats
O soft embalmer of the still midnight, *connotations of healing
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,—
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; *simile=darkness does
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, not impede the work
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul. of the conscience
The speaker is summoning sleep to bring its healing powers to him at night.
The poem is a direct address to sleep; the speaker is in fact invoking sleep
itself and , through the use of the imperative firm, is directing it to endow him
with its multitude of benefits. The healing nature of sleep is conveyed
through diction such as “embalmer”. “Careful fingers and benign”. “O
soothest Sleep !”, “lulling charities”. The speaker personifies sleep in a direct
address to it with the pronouns “thee”, “thine”, “thy”. Keats thus exults the
virtues of sleep personifying it as a gentle and soothing force that brings
relief and escape from the grasps of the “curious Conscious”.
The poem is in the form of a Petrarchian Sonnet being composed of 14 lines
and having a caesura after the 8th line. In this sonnet the caesura is marked
by the words “The save me” as the speaker asks for sleep to salvage him
from the workings of his conscience. The tone of the sonnet changes at this
point as we note a sense of urgency. Sleep is depicted as a reprieve from
the torments and struggles of everyday life. He declares that if sleep does
not visit him the worries of the day that has just passed will visit him
engendering much worry and anxiety. The use of the word “shine” refers to
by John Keats
O soft embalmer of the still midnight, *connotations of healing
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,—
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; *simile=darkness does
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, not impede the work
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul. of the conscience
The speaker is summoning sleep to bring its healing powers to him at night.
The poem is a direct address to sleep; the speaker is in fact invoking sleep
itself and , through the use of the imperative firm, is directing it to endow him
with its multitude of benefits. The healing nature of sleep is conveyed
through diction such as “embalmer”. “Careful fingers and benign”. “O
soothest Sleep !”, “lulling charities”. The speaker personifies sleep in a direct
address to it with the pronouns “thee”, “thine”, “thy”. Keats thus exults the
virtues of sleep personifying it as a gentle and soothing force that brings
relief and escape from the grasps of the “curious Conscious”.
The poem is in the form of a Petrarchian Sonnet being composed of 14 lines
and having a caesura after the 8th line. In this sonnet the caesura is marked
by the words “The save me” as the speaker asks for sleep to salvage him
from the workings of his conscience. The tone of the sonnet changes at this
point as we note a sense of urgency. Sleep is depicted as a reprieve from
the torments and struggles of everyday life. He declares that if sleep does
not visit him the worries of the day that has just passed will visit him
engendering much worry and anxiety. The use of the word “shine” refers to
