Sleep
Sleep - meaning Summary
A Plea for Restorative Sleep
Longfellow’s "Sleep" presents a tired speaker pleading for relief from mental and emotional anguish. He asks the winds and personified Sleep to quiet disruptive thoughts and grant restorative, uninterrupted rest. Classical allusions to Hermes binding Argus and to Sleep as the "lesser mystery" frame sleep as a gentle, temporary release contrasted with death. The poem centers on the desire for reprieve from toil, care, and the weight of suffering.
Read Complete AnalysesLull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught; Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound; For I am weary, and am overwrought With too much toil, with too much care distraught, And with the iron crown of anguish crowned. Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and cheek, O peaceful Sleep! until from pain released I breathe again uninterrupted breath! Ah, with what subtle meaning did the Greek Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast Whereof the greater mystery is death!
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