To Sleep Questions

1. The speaker of this poem is addressing sleep as he speaks about the “soft embalmer of the still midnight” which refers to the time. He personifies sleep.

2. The opening line, “o soft embalmer of the still midnight…” , is used to show the similarities of embalming a body and being asleep. When you’re asleep, you look somewhat dead (except for the breathing). You look somewhat dead due to the stillness of the body. But, like embalming, you preserve the whole body, including thoughts and feelings.

3. The speaker thinks that forgetfulness of sleep is divine as it makes us forget about what’s going on in our lives. Also, when we’re asleep, its as if the outside world doesn’t exist anymore and that all our problems are forgotten.

4. Sleep saves the speaker from all the problems/fears/emotions/worries we face when we’re awake. He values it so much as its so very rare to have a moments peace, where you’re not worrying about one thing or another.

5. He describes his conscious as “curious Conscience, that still lords/Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;”. He uses a simile with the mole & his own conscience, as well as capitalizing the C in conscience. He also personifies his conscience by describing it as lording its strength for darkness.

6. He describes his soul as a hushed Casket. By this, he means that his soul is locked away from everything else while he’s sleeping. One could say that when you’re awake, you release your soul, but when you’re asleep you seal it.

7. When you’re sleeping as well as dead, you barely move. There are many metaphors that compare sleep to death such as “dead to the world”. When you’re asleep, you’re not doing anything, which is why the two can be linked together.

8. There isn’t anything in the poem that screams his feelings about death. But, if you take into consideration how closely linked death and sleep are, then one could make an educated guess and say that he is grateful for it, but even that is quite far-fetched. You cannot predict someone’s feelings on death if you’re given a poem about sleep. Although the two are closely linked, they are still two entirely different things.

9. This poem doesn’t say that it’s about death – it could be interpreted that way, but it never states that within the poem that it is in fact about death. The two poems are different in the sense that one directly confronts it, and the second might be about it.