Poem: The Sleeper

Although I expected a haunting contemplation of death and its eerie silence, and despite my supposed I would read here a meditation on the Gothic horror of decay, I had all such suppositions overturned. Initially it seemed this poem was a question of whether life would be beautiful if there were to be no eternal sleep. Now I see it more in its true light: as a celebration of devoted love and the peace we can come to when confronted with death, an astonishment at the pulchritudinous state of a woman who has passed. All of these and more are the focus of today’s episode - the dark, dream-like poetry of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Sleeper.

Join me as I tell and explore one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most romantic poems, and how it traverses with subtle Gothic beauty the mourning of a lost loved one.

Teachers, students, horror literature fans, Halloween lovers, and Poe enthusiasts like myself…let’s dive right in.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:33 Poem
• 4:01 Aftertalk
• 9:54 Farewell

Transcript

Tynan Portillo presents, featuring the works of Edgar Allan Poe and the best horror stories of the 19th century. Welcome to The Poe Show podcast. Music and narration by Tynan Portillo.

 Today’s episode, 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.

 Hello and welcome back to The Poe Show, I’m your host, The Poe Guy, Tynan Portillo.

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The Sleeper holds qualities akin to other poems by Edgar Allan Poe, such as The Conqueror Worm and Annabel Lee, focusing on the sense of loss and finality with death. But it also contains elements which can be found in The Spirits of the Dead, speaking more to the ethereal nature of the veil between life and death - and the extent to which we go to make sense of it.

 This poem was originally published under a different name and with more lines in the stanzas. The first edition was called “Irene,” published in 1831, and the edition you just heard was the most recently revised by Poe, published in 1841.

 The poem begins by putting us into the immediate perspective of the writer, which is an element I have not seen in Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry yet, so it was surprising. Usually Poe starts by describing another person, a place, an event - but here we are starting right with our protagonist. It’s midnight, the witching hour, when magic can take place, and we are standing with the writer beneath a mystic moon (another symbol of the supernatural). Already, we should be expecting something magical to happen.

 There is an opiate vapor around her casket, a confusing air, so dewy and thick that it’s dripping out from the golden rim into the universe. Rosemary, a symbol of remembrance, nods upon the grave and the lily, a symbol of purity and innocence, lolls upon the wave. And the nearby lake looks like Lethe, a river in the Underworld of Greek mythology. All of this points to the tragic death of Irene, where all Beauty sleeps.

 The second stanza suddenly changes our focus to say that the writer is talking directly to Irene - the lady bright - instead of us, the readers. The writer is asking Irene if it is right that the unfeeling airs come to stir up her curtain canopy. But Irene is undisturbed in her silent sleep, which the writer prays continues to be the case as “pale sheeted ghosts go by.” He so wishes her a deep sleep that he wishes that her family’s vault would open to her, but that she shall never force an echo more. For it is the dead who groaned within the vault, but she, Irene, is more peaceful than those who are dead - she sleeps. Also it says she is a child of sin by the end, but that just speaks to the juxtaposition of a mortal human being looking so divine as she sleeps. Even in death, the writer cannot help but worship this woman.

 The whole point of this poem is to say, “She appears to be more at peace than dead. I love her and hope that she rests now from all worries and cares.”

 Following the timeline of Edgar Allan Poe’s life, we see that he has always written about death, but the essence of its nature has changed as time went on. In 1827 Edgar Allan Poe published poems like The Spirits of the Dead, speaking to the untouchable mystery of death. By the 1840’s, when his wife was succumbing to tuberculosis, Poe started writing poems like The Conqueror Worm, The Raven and Annabel Lee, which portray the existential crisis and immense sorrow that follow death. Finally, in 1849, just 7 months before his own untimely death, Edgar Allan Poe published A Dream Within A Dream, a metaphorical posing of the ultimate question of life: Is there a point to life?

 You can see the pattern in Edgar Allan Poe’s life that influenced his writing. And based on this knowledge, we see that in The Sleeper, Poe is in the middle of his journey of the silent beauty of death, before getting to a more depressing outlook on it during the 1840’s.

Someone very close to me is having some health troubles. And I felt this poem because of what is going on in my own life. I think we can all find some connection to this poem. I personally connect with the theme presented of the unending iron thread of love, strengthened by those we accept into our lives, and wrapped around our memories with them. Love truly is forever.

 Thank you so much for listening to The Poe Show. Remember to subscribe, like, share and comment on Spotify and YouTube, and text your questions or episode suggestions to the podcast using the link in the description. As always, you can support this show by subscribing on YouTube or Buzzsprout so I can run ads or by joining The Poe Show Kofi profile. Follow this podcast on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Bluesky, and more. All links available in the episode description.

 That’s all for now, so you’ll hear from me again on the next episode of The Poe Show.