Come Sleep! Oh Sleep Themes

Despair is sitting there tossing darts at the speaker of "Come Sleep! O Sleep," and civil wars are raging inside of him. This isn't sadness. This is downright suffering. The speaker's metaphors for...

Sleep and Despair—they're both written with capital letters in "Come Sleep! O Sleep," which tells us that the speaker thinks of them as characters or supernatural beings. Yeah sure lots of poets...

"Come Sleep! O Sleep" isn't your ordinary "Jeepers!-I-can't-sleep" poem. This is a poem about emotional violence. Think about it: civil wars, dart-throwing, and a shield. Usually, our private strug...