Analysis of Can't Sleep?

Janet Muirhead Hill 1942 (Colorado)



When the many troubles of the world have plagued your weary head,
You may find you cannot sleep when at last you go to bed.

Instead, the problems seem to swell, as your mind reviews them still.
And instead of finding full release, thoughts repeat against your will.

There is nothing you can do to save a world in disarray,
Yet, worry persists and then includes regrets from yesterday.

What's done is done and can't be changed, so pick up a book and read.
Escape the world and forget your past for the mental reset you need.

For stories can be the soothing balm you need for a troubled mind,
A diversion with transmuting power to escape your daily grind.


Scheme AA BB CC AX DD
Poetic Form
Metre 101010101111101 11111011111111 010101111110111 0011101011010111 11101111101001 11001010101110 111101111110101 01010011110100111 1101101011110101 001011101011101
Closest metre Iambic octameter
Characters 664
Words 133
Sentences 7
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 2, 2, 2
Lines Amount 10
Letters per line (avg) 52
Words per line (avg) 12
Letters per stanza (avg) 103
Words per stanza (avg) 24

About this poem

I finished this poem today. It's about the struggle I have that I believe I share with many. That of the brain not shutting down when we would like to sleep. And of course the solution for a book-loving person like me is to immerse myself in someone else's story. I can't imagine going to sleep without reading first.

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Written on November 05, 2022

Submitted by janet_1 on November 05, 2022

Modified on March 16, 2023

40 sec read
54

Janet Muirhead Hill

Janet Muirhead Hill is a novelist who occasionally writes poetry for fun and for self-expression. Her published books include the Miranda and Starlight series of horse stories for middle-grade readers and other fiction. more…

All Janet Muirhead Hill poems | Janet Muirhead Hill Books

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