Lord Byron

Sun of the Sleepless!

Sun of the Sleepless! - meaning Summary

Melancholy Memory's Cold Light

Byron addresses the moonlike "Sun of the sleepless," a sad, distant light that illuminates memory without warming the present. The poem compares recollected joy to a pale beam: visible and clear, yet powerless and cold. It presents nostalgia as beautiful but unfulfilling, a remembrance that clarifies the past while emphasizing emotional absence in the present, leaving the speaker with sorrow rather than consolation.

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Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star! Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far, That show’st the darkness thou canst not dispel, How like art thou to joy remember’d well! So gleams the past, the light of other days, Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays; A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold, Distinct but distant clear but, oh how cold!

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