The Sleeper
by Edgar Allan Poe
At midnight, in the month of
June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And softly dripping, drop by
drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the
grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its
breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the
lake
A conscious slumber seems to
take,
And would not, for the world,
awake.
All Beauty sleeps! – and lo!
where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!
Oh, lady bright! can it be right
–
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the
tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice
drop –
The bodiless airs, a wizard
rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and
out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully – so fearfully –
Above the closed and fringéd lid
’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul
lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down
the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and
fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no
fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming
here?
Sure thou art come o’er far-off
seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange
thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length
of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her
sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred
keep!
This chamber changed for one
more holy,
This bed for one more
melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go
by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her
sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her
creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault
unfold –
Some vault that oft hath flung
its black
And wingéd pannels fluttering
back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested
palls
Of her grand family funerals –
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portals she hath
thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone
–
Some tomb from out whose
sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo
more,
Thrilling to think, poor child
of sin!
It was the dead who groaned
within.
Recommended reading:
The Complete Stories and Poems
by Edgar Allan Poe (1966)
Video by Jack Kost – 2025.
Photograph: Moon Over Trees
(2024), by Jack Kost.
Wind Sound Effect by
freesound_community from Pixabay.
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