∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
This poem appeared in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter of May 11, 1833, signed “Tamerlane.” I cannot think another Baltimore [page 224:] poet in 1833 used that name, and I regard the ascription to Poe as sure, like that of the companion piece, “Fanny,” which followed in the next week. John C. French reprinted the pieces in Modern Language Notes for May 1918 (33:265-266).
Nothing is known of the lady to whom the poem is addressed. Miss Phillips (I, 456), suggested that Poe's foster mother was here “etherealized” — but the poem is obviously addressed to a living person, if anyone. It is not impossible that the poet addressed it to Mary Starr, but it is surely not the lost “reproachful” poem discussed below at p. 232.
Sleep on, sleep on, another hour —
I would not break so calm a sleep,
To wake to sunshine and to show’r,
5
Sleep on, sleep on, like sculptured thing,
Sure seraph fans thee with his wing
We would not deem thee child of earth,
10
But that in heav’n thou had'st thy birth,
To mar the bright, the perfect flow’r,
But all is beautiful and still —
[[n]]
15
And golden sands proclaim the hour
Sleep on, sleep on, some fairy dream
Perchance is woven in thy sleep —
[[n]]
But, O, thy spirit, calm, serene,
20
[1833]
15 Compare Politian, Vl, 41: “The sands of time are changed to golden grains.”
19-20 The ending is very like two lines in Shelley's “Mutability” (1821): “Dream thou — and from thy sleep, / Then wake to weep.”
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Notes:
None.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
[S:1 - TOM1P, 1969] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions-The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (T. O. Mabbott) (To -- (Sleep on))