The City of Sleep
The City of Sleep - meaning Summary
Longing for Restful Escape
Kipling's poem imagines a "Merciful Town" by the Sea of Dreams where the poor and sick find healing and rest. The speaker and companions yearn to enter that refuge but are barred, forced back by the coming of day—personified as a policeman. The repeated plea "pity us" frames them as wakeful outcasts who can look toward comfort but cannot partake, emphasizing longing, exclusion, and the cruel routine of daylight.
Read Complete AnalysesOver the edge of the purple down, Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town That is hard by the Sea of Dreams, Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, And the sick may forget to weep? But we, pity us! Oh, pity us! We wakeful; ah, pity us!, We must go back with Policeman Day, Back from the City of Sleep! Weary they turn from the scroll and crown, Fetter and prayer and plough, They that go up to the Merciful Town, For her gates are closing now. It is their right in the Baths of Night Body and soul to steep, But we, pity us! ah, pity us! We wakeful; ah, pity us!, We must go back with Policeman Day, Back from the City of Sleep! Over the edge of the purple down, Ere the tender dreams begin, Look, we may look, at the Merciful Town, But we may not enter in! Outcasts all, from her guarded wall Back to our watch we creep: We, pity us! ah, pity us! We wakeful; ah, pity us!, We that go back with Policeman Day, Back from the City of Sleep!
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