Lights Out
By Edward Thomas
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose. *theme= the inevitability of death
Many a road and track
That, since the dawn’s first crack, *Edward’s characteristic syntax inversion
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink. *ambiguous -pleasant or unpleasant
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble, *now we have unambiguity
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter, and leave, alone,
I know not how.
The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers *connotations of the unknown
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself. *cyclical pattern (opens with “I”)
In the poem ‘Lights Out’ the speaker contemplates death. An extended
metaphor that runs throughout the poem is Thomas’s comparison of sleep to
a forest; the forest representing death. The notion of being lost in a forest
is used to convey how death is the great unknown to us.
By Edward Thomas
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose. *theme= the inevitability of death
Many a road and track
That, since the dawn’s first crack, *Edward’s characteristic syntax inversion
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink. *ambiguous -pleasant or unpleasant
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble, *now we have unambiguity
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter, and leave, alone,
I know not how.
The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers *connotations of the unknown
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself. *cyclical pattern (opens with “I”)
In the poem ‘Lights Out’ the speaker contemplates death. An extended
metaphor that runs throughout the poem is Thomas’s comparison of sleep to
a forest; the forest representing death. The notion of being lost in a forest
is used to convey how death is the great unknown to us.
