The Sleeper
Edgar Allan Poe
1809 to 1849
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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I pray to God that she may lie
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls
Steals drowsily and musically
At midnight, in the month of June,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
It was the dead who groaned within.
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
And wingéd pannels fluttering back,
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
This chamber changed for one more holy,
A conscious slumber seems to take,
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
For her may some tall vault unfold—
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
This window open to the night?
Oh, lady bright! can it be right—
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
And would not, for the world, awake.
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This bed for one more melancholy,
In childhood, many an idle stone—
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
And softly dripping, drop by drop,
Against whose portals she hath thrown,
Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
Irene, with her Destinies!
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Forever with unopened eye,
Laughingly through the lattice drop—
The lily lolls upon the wave;
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Above the closed and fringéd lid
Of her grand family funerals—
All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies
Into the universal valley.
Far in the forest, dim and old,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!
So fitfully—so fearfully—
The ruin moulders into rest;
And wave the curtain canopy
And this all solemn silentness!
A wonder to these garden trees!