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The Sleeper
Este libro ha sido convertido a formato digital por una comunidad de voluntarios. Puedes encontrarlo gratis en Internet. Comprar la edición Kindle incluye la entrega inalámbrica.
3 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1831
5 people are currently reading
96 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe
9,887 books28.8k followersThe name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.
The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
September 21, 2020
A delightfully dark and eerie poem, still filled with beauty.
July 5, 2020
I listened to Poe's The Sleeper at least five times today (2.32 minutes). I think this is Poe's most beautiful poem and Ralph Cosham is an amazing reader.
Not really creepy, sad and beautiful.
https://bookaudio.online/768-the-slee...
https://poets.org/poem/sleeper
Not really creepy, sad and beautiful.
https://bookaudio.online/768-the-slee...
https://poets.org/poem/sleeper
December 5, 2017
"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 molders 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!
O, 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 fringed 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
For ever 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 has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal 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.
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 molders 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!
O, 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 fringed 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
For ever 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 has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal 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.
March 29, 2020
No es uno de sus mejores poemas...
June 1, 2023
I HAD TO ADD THIS POEM BECAUSE IT IS SO BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN YET VERY MORBID 😊
November 3, 2020
I’m never quite sure what I’m going to get with Poe’s poetry (besides the obvious references to death that his poetry is so well-known for), which means my feelings toward his poetry are mixed. Some I like, some I’m indifferent to, and others do not work for me. The Sleeper belongs to the first category.
The Sleeper is an easy poem to read, one that flows wonderfully. I powered through it in no time, then had to read it again as I wanted to appreciate it properly. It’s certainly one of my favourite pieces from Poe.
The Sleeper is an easy poem to read, one that flows wonderfully. I powered through it in no time, then had to read it again as I wanted to appreciate it properly. It’s certainly one of my favourite pieces from Poe.
October 27, 2020
The Sleeper was first published in the year 1831 under the title “Irene before being greatly revised over the successive years and renamed The Sleeper.
"Poe himself was well pleased with The Sleeper. He named it first in a list of his best poems in a letter of July 2, 1844, to J. R. Lowell. On December 15, 1846, he wrote to George W. Eveleth: 'In the higher qualities of poetry, it is better than ‘The Raven’ — but there is not one man in a million who could be brought to agree with me in this opinion.' Killis Campbell (Poems, p. 212) quoted J. T. Trowbridge, who in My Own Story (1902), p. 184, considered Poe’s poem The Sleeper to be the most strikingly beautiful of all the productions of that aberrant genius." https://www.eapoe.org/Works/mabbott/t... I wholeheartedly agree with Trowbridge yet The Raven is still my favorite even though the prose is not as beautifully put forth it is far more haunting and lingers on your mind forevermore even though the raven quotes otherwise.
IRENË [Original 1831 Version]
’T is now (so sings the soaring moon)
Midnight in the sweet month of June,
When winged visions love to lie
Lazily upon beauty’s eye,
Or worse — upon her brow to dance
In panoply of old romance,
Till thoughts and locks are left, alas!
A ne’er-to-be untangled mass.
An influence dewy, drowsy, dim,
Is dripping from that golden rim;
Grey towers are mouldering into rest,
Wrapping the fog around their breast:
Looking like Lethë, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not for the world awake:
The rosemary sleeps upon the grave —
The lily lolls upon the wave —
And million bright pines to and fro,
Are rocking lullabies as they go,
To the lone oak that reels with bliss,
Nodding above the dim abyss.
All beauty sleeps: and lo! where lies
With casement open to the skies,
Irenë, with her destinies!
Thus hums the moon within her ear,
“O lady sweet! how camest thou here?
“Strange are thine eyelids — strange thy dress!
“And strange thy glorious length of tress!
“Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,
“A wonder to our desert trees!
“Some gentle wind hath thought it right
“To open thy window to the night,
“And wanton airs from the tree-top,
“Laughingly thro’ the lattice drop,
“And wave this crimson canopy,
“Like a banner o’er thy dreaming eye!
“Lady, awake! lady awake!
“For the holy Jesus’ sake!
“For strangely — fearfully in this hall
“My tinted shadows rise and fall!”
The lady sleeps: the dead all sleep —
At least as long as Love doth weep:
Entranc’d, the spirit loves to lie
As long as — tears on Memory’s eye:
But when a week or two go by,
And the light laughter chokes the sigh,
Indignant from the tomb doth take
Its way to some remember’d lake,
Where oft — in life — with friends — it went
To bathe in the pure element,
And there, from the untrodden grass,
Wreathing for its transparent brow
Those flowers that say (ah hear them now!)
To the night-winds as they pass,
“Ai! ai! alas! — alas!”
Pores for a moment, ere it go,
On the clear waters there that flow,
Then sinks within (weigh’d down by wo)
Th’ uncertain, shadowy heaven below.
* * * * * *
The lady sleeps: oh! may her sleep
As it is lasting so be deep —
No icy worms about her creep:
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with as calm an eye,
That chamber chang’d for one more holy —
That bed for one more melancholy.
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold,
Against whose sounding door she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone —
Some tomb, which oft hath flung its black
And vampyre-winged pannels back,
Flutt’ring triumphant o’er the palls
Of her old family funerals.
"Poe himself was well pleased with The Sleeper. He named it first in a list of his best poems in a letter of July 2, 1844, to J. R. Lowell. On December 15, 1846, he wrote to George W. Eveleth: 'In the higher qualities of poetry, it is better than ‘The Raven’ — but there is not one man in a million who could be brought to agree with me in this opinion.' Killis Campbell (Poems, p. 212) quoted J. T. Trowbridge, who in My Own Story (1902), p. 184, considered Poe’s poem The Sleeper to be the most strikingly beautiful of all the productions of that aberrant genius." https://www.eapoe.org/Works/mabbott/t... I wholeheartedly agree with Trowbridge yet The Raven is still my favorite even though the prose is not as beautifully put forth it is far more haunting and lingers on your mind forevermore even though the raven quotes otherwise.
IRENË [Original 1831 Version]
’T is now (so sings the soaring moon)
Midnight in the sweet month of June,
When winged visions love to lie
Lazily upon beauty’s eye,
Or worse — upon her brow to dance
In panoply of old romance,
Till thoughts and locks are left, alas!
A ne’er-to-be untangled mass.
An influence dewy, drowsy, dim,
Is dripping from that golden rim;
Grey towers are mouldering into rest,
Wrapping the fog around their breast:
Looking like Lethë, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not for the world awake:
The rosemary sleeps upon the grave —
The lily lolls upon the wave —
And million bright pines to and fro,
Are rocking lullabies as they go,
To the lone oak that reels with bliss,
Nodding above the dim abyss.
All beauty sleeps: and lo! where lies
With casement open to the skies,
Irenë, with her destinies!
Thus hums the moon within her ear,
“O lady sweet! how camest thou here?
“Strange are thine eyelids — strange thy dress!
“And strange thy glorious length of tress!
“Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,
“A wonder to our desert trees!
“Some gentle wind hath thought it right
“To open thy window to the night,
“And wanton airs from the tree-top,
“Laughingly thro’ the lattice drop,
“And wave this crimson canopy,
“Like a banner o’er thy dreaming eye!
“Lady, awake! lady awake!
“For the holy Jesus’ sake!
“For strangely — fearfully in this hall
“My tinted shadows rise and fall!”
The lady sleeps: the dead all sleep —
At least as long as Love doth weep:
Entranc’d, the spirit loves to lie
As long as — tears on Memory’s eye:
But when a week or two go by,
And the light laughter chokes the sigh,
Indignant from the tomb doth take
Its way to some remember’d lake,
Where oft — in life — with friends — it went
To bathe in the pure element,
And there, from the untrodden grass,
Wreathing for its transparent brow
Those flowers that say (ah hear them now!)
To the night-winds as they pass,
“Ai! ai! alas! — alas!”
Pores for a moment, ere it go,
On the clear waters there that flow,
Then sinks within (weigh’d down by wo)
Th’ uncertain, shadowy heaven below.
* * * * * *
The lady sleeps: oh! may her sleep
As it is lasting so be deep —
No icy worms about her creep:
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with as calm an eye,
That chamber chang’d for one more holy —
That bed for one more melancholy.
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold,
Against whose sounding door she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone —
Some tomb, which oft hath flung its black
And vampyre-winged pannels back,
Flutt’ring triumphant o’er the palls
Of her old family funerals.
August 10, 2015
``Why and what art thou dreaming here?``
September 8, 2022
How anyone can give Poe a lesser rating below 4 or 5 stars bewilders me. He was, and contuninues timelessly into our modern age to be the Master of macabre, and dark lyric poeticism.
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April 12, 2022Watch the livestream discussion
https://youtu.be/JTkfDREpaHo
https://youtu.be/JTkfDREpaHo
May 31, 2017
It's not a great Edgar Allan Poe poem, but it's not a horrible one either. It's pretty much just a straight, middle of the road poem.
November 17, 2019
Underated. I love this one
"The Sleeper" by Edgar Allan Poe
"... An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim..."
"The Sleeper" by Edgar Allan Poe
"... An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim..."
January 5, 2024
“At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon”
The sleeper by Edgar Allen Poe has been highly recommended to me by a regular who comes into the bookstore I work at, and every week he asks me if I’ve finally read the sleeper. I’ve read a couple others of Poe that he recommended but keep forgetting about “The Sleeper”. But atlas! I’ve finally read it and can say it’s probably my favorite by Poe so far.
“The rosemary nods upon the grave;”
The sleeper by Edgar Allen Poe has been highly recommended to me by a regular who comes into the bookstore I work at, and every week he asks me if I’ve finally read the sleeper. I’ve read a couple others of Poe that he recommended but keep forgetting about “The Sleeper”. But atlas! I’ve finally read it and can say it’s probably my favorite by Poe so far.
“The rosemary nods upon the grave;”
January 9, 2021
Another brilliant evocative poem from Poe which stirs the emotions and really takes you along with it.
He certainly was a great author, and he takes these short work and they really get to you.
Maybe shorter work can be better?
He certainly was a great author, and he takes these short work and they really get to you.
Maybe shorter work can be better?
June 15, 2023
It's been a while since I read this, but I noted that it seemed like it had the "same mood as when you are trying to sleep and your brain just decides to contemplate death"
Solid imagery, but didn't captivate me as much.
Solid imagery, but didn't captivate me as much.
June 20, 2020
Spoiler: she’s not sleeping.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 2, 2020
I just learned that rosemary signifies remeberance.
November 14, 2020
I think he needs to maybe close the window...
I like how it almost seems like the narrator wants to remain in denial about the woman's death
I like how it almost seems like the narrator wants to remain in denial about the woman's death
November 3, 2023
Not much of much, fine, for poetry.
November 4, 2025
This beautiful poem reminds me of Corpse Bride, so serene and magically put a great read for a sleepless night
July 9, 2021
La durmiente, es un poema del escritor Edgar Allan Poe, publicado en la antología de 1831, Poemas de Edgar Allan Poe.
El tema principal de esta obra es la muerte, en especial la muerte de su mujer joven y hermosa. Esto le lleva a cuestionar la naturaleza de la vida y la muerte.
El autor, considera este escrito superior a otros poemas suyos. Esta poesía encierra una pequeña historia misteriosa sobre una dama que yace en una tumba. La atmósfera que se crea a medida que se lee es perfecta.
Esta obra es muy descriptiva que evoca tiempos de hechicerías, magia y espíritus.
Para mí es un hermoso poema que logra construir la figura diurna del sueño de una manera muy misteriosa y para nada lineal.
Un tesoro más de la pluma de este gran escritor.
El tema principal de esta obra es la muerte, en especial la muerte de su mujer joven y hermosa. Esto le lleva a cuestionar la naturaleza de la vida y la muerte.
El autor, considera este escrito superior a otros poemas suyos. Esta poesía encierra una pequeña historia misteriosa sobre una dama que yace en una tumba. La atmósfera que se crea a medida que se lee es perfecta.
Esta obra es muy descriptiva que evoca tiempos de hechicerías, magia y espíritus.
Para mí es un hermoso poema que logra construir la figura diurna del sueño de una manera muy misteriosa y para nada lineal.
Un tesoro más de la pluma de este gran escritor.
February 5, 2025
did i read this to finish my goal? yes
December 11, 2024
"At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon."
Nothing new under the Sun, in fact under the Moon, as we're talking about midnight. The sleeper is a lady, her name is Irene, she is very beautiful, the only question is if she's dead or alive...
The Sleeper was published for the first time in 1831, in Poems by Edgar A. Poe.
I stand beneath the mystic moon."
Nothing new under the Sun, in fact under the Moon, as we're talking about midnight. The sleeper is a lady, her name is Irene, she is very beautiful, the only question is if she's dead or alive...
The Sleeper was published for the first time in 1831, in Poems by Edgar A. Poe.
November 16, 2013
Un poema bastante conmovedor y trágico, al puro estilo que Por puede narrar de forma delicada y directa, ondeando con fuerzas espirituales que desgarran la tragedia de la perdida de un ser amado. Básico dentro del kit de lecturas del poeta.
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August 28, 2014En ocasiones el encanto se tiende a dormir y viene la muerte envidiosa e hilarante a robarse la pureza, sin embargo en pleno pugilato se queda estupefacta ante tanta belleza...
Aun la muerte aprecia lo bello
Aun la muerte aprecia lo bello
October 5, 2020
Edgar Allan Poe kan noget helt særligt med sproget.
Jeg bliver altid fanget hurtigt, fascineret af sproget og længes efter et eller andet, jeg ikke kan placere.
Virkelig smukke historier, der kryber ind under huden på læseren.
Jeg bliver altid fanget hurtigt, fascineret af sproget og længes efter et eller andet, jeg ikke kan placere.
Virkelig smukke historier, der kryber ind under huden på læseren.
September 3, 2014
Read as part of the volume "Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems".
August 21, 2015
Qué bien escribía este loco... <3
Read
February 10, 2016"Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within."
Chills.
It was the dead who groaned within."
Chills.
June 11, 2016
Again: Not fan of poetry but I liked it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews