Analysis of Ere Sleep Comes Down To Soothe The Weary Eyes
Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 (Dayton) – 1906
ERE sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
Which all the day with ceaseless care have sought
The magic gold which from the seeker flies;
Ere dreams put on the gown and cap of thought,
And make the waking world a world of lies, —
Of lies most palpable, uncouth, forlorn,
That say life's full of aches and tears and sighs, —
Oh, how with more than dreams the soul is torn,
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
How all the griefs and heartaches we have known
Come up like pois'nous vapors that arise
From some base witch's caldron, when the crone
To work some potent spell, her magic plies.
The past which held its share of bitter pain,
Whose ghost we prayed that Time might exorcise,
Comes up, is lived and suffered o'er again,
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
What phantoms fill the dimly lighted room;
What ghostly shades in awe-creating guise
Are bodied forth within the teeming gloom.
What echoes faint of sad and soul-sick cries,
And pangs of vague inexplicable pain
That pay the spirit's ceaseless enterprise,
Come thronging through the chambers of the brain,
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
Where ranges forth the spirit far and free?
Through what strange realms and unfamiliar skies
Tends her far course to lands of mystery?
To lands unspeakable — beyond surmise,
Where shapes unknowable to being spring,
Till, faint of wing, the Fancy fails and dies
Much wearied with the spirit's journeying,
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes,
How questioneth the soul that other soul, —
The inner sense which neither cheats nor lies,
But self exposes unto self, a scroll
Full writ with all life's acts unwise or wise,
In characters indelible and known;
So, trembling with the shock of sad surprise,
The soul doth view its awful self alone,
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes.
When sleep comes down to seal the weary eyes,
The last dear sleep whose soft embrace is balm,
And whom sad sorrow teaches us to prize
For kissing all our passions into calm,
Ah, then, no more we heed the sad world's cries,
Or seek to probe th' eternal mystery,
Or fret our souls at long-withheld replies,
At glooms through which our visions cannot see,
When sleep comes down to seal the weary eyes.
Scheme | AbabacacAAdadaeafAAgagaeaeAAhahaiaiAAjajadadAAkakahahA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111110101 1101110111 0101110101 1111010111 0101010111 1111001101 1111110101 1111110111 1111110101 1111110101 110101111 111110101 111101101 1111010101 0111111101 11111111 11110101001 1111110101 1111110101 1101010101 1101010101 1101010101 1101110111 011101001 110101010 111010101 1111110101 1111110101 1101010101 111100101 1011111100 1101000101 1101001101 1111010101 1101010100 1111110101 1111110101 11011101 0101110111 1101010101 1111110111 0100010001 11001011101 0111110101 1111110101 1111110101 0111110111 0111010111 11011010011 1111110111 111111010100 11101110101 11111010101 1111110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,385 |
Words | 438 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 54 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,913 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 436 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 28, 2023
- 2:13 min read
- 93 Views
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