{
 "id": "edgar-allan-poe/the-sleeper",
 "title": "The Sleeper",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Edgar Allan Poe",
 "poet_slug": "edgar-allan-poe",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1831,
  "venue": "Poems (1831)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.eapoe.org/works/editions/poems.htm"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/edgar-allan-poe_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2151",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Acrostic",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Elizabeth_(Poe)",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Serenade_(Poe)",
   "https://archive.org/details/worksedgarallan00unkngoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924019520810",
   "https://archive.org/details/jstor-2915307"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 61,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "At midnight in the month of June,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I stand beneath the mystic moon.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Exhales from out her golden rim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, softly dripping, drop by drop,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the quiet mountain top,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Steals drowsily and musically",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the universal valley.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rosemary nods upon the grave;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lily lolls upon the wave;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wrapping the fog about its breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ruin moulders into rest;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looking like Lethe, see! the lake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A conscious slumber seems to take,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And would not, for the world, awake.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All Beauty sleeps!⁠—and lo! where lies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Her casement open to the skies)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Irene, with her Destinies!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, lady bright! can it be right⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This window open to the night?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wanton airs, from the tree-top,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Laughingly through the lattice drop⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flit through thy chamber in and out,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wave the curtain canopy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So fitfully⁠—so fearfully⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Above the closed and fringèd lid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That o’er the floor and down the wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why and what art thou dreaming here?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A wonder to these garden trees!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strange, above all, thy length of tress,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And this all-solemn silentness!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which is enduring, so be deep!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heaven have her in its sacred keep!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This chamber changed for one more holy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This bed for one more melancholy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I pray to God that she may lie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forever with unopened eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As it is lasting, so be deep;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soft may the worms about her creep!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far in the forest, dim and old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For her may some tall vault unfold⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some vault that oft hath flung its black",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wingèd panels fluttering back,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Triumphant, o’er the crested palls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of her grand family funerals⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some sepulchre, remote, alone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against whose portal she hath thrown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In childhood many an idle stone⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some tomb from out whose sounding door",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She ne’er shall force an echo more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was the dead who groaned within.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}