About the Poet
Edward Thomas:
Edward Thomas was born in 1878 and died in 1917. He was a poet and a critic. During most of his short career, he was condemned to writing books to order, to make a living, but he always wrote with literacy taste about poets and with feeling about nature. He was killed in the First World War. He left poems whose lyrical beauty and passion greatly enhanced his reputation.
Idea of Poem:
The poem dwells on the power of sleep. Our routine activities, our desires ambitions must all give way to the hold that sleep has over us. Things that are most dearly cherished, like a favorite book or a loved face, are willingly relinquished as we find ourselves slipping gently into the blessed world of sleep. It is an unconditional surrender to the deep, unconscious self, to the unknown. Sleep has an equalizing effect: all are subject to its spellbinding power: the rich and poor, the good and evil. The quiet, silent rhythms create an almost lulling effect and capture beautifully that moment of just before that final drifting off into the unknown. There is, perhaps also the implicit idea of death: sleep and death are, after all, closely related.
Reference:
These lines have been taken from the poem “Lights Out” written by Edward Thomas.
Context:
In this poem, the poet has compared “sleep” to an immeasurable forest. It is so deep that all paths leading to it come to an end there. All the lights are put out and man cannot find his way. He is lost there. Sleep is the greatest blessing. It overpowers everyone. No one can run away from it. After the day's long, hectic activities, everyone has to reach this forest. The implicit idea is perhaps of death.
Stanza:
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.
Explanation
In these lines, the poet has compared sleep to a deep and thick forest. He says he has reached the initial, stage of sleep. It is like an immeasurable deep and thick forest where all human beings have to lose their way. No matter, if they lead a straight or a zigzag path. They hey, at last, to come to the edge of sleep sooner or later because there is no alternative. Everybody, whoever, he is has to sleep. Sleep is a great blessing, without which man cannot pull on within life. The suggestion in this stanza is „that man has to die sooner or later and has to reach the borders of death after completing the journey of life.
Stanza:
Many a road track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers.
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.
Explanation
This stanza gives an expression to the thought that all the roads that remain busy right from the appearance of the day, till the arrival of night, people moving on such roads, have to reach the edge of the deep forest (sleep or death). All the travelers (human-beings) suddenly blur because of the overpowering of sleep (or death) and soon they sink in (or die). They are fast asleep because of the day's long work journey of life).
Stanza:
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
Explanation
In this stanza, the poet says that when sleep overpowers a person he forgets everything. His love, disappointment and desire, and ambition, etc. all come to an end. Every kind of joy and all troubles no matter, how sweet the joy is, or how bitter the troubles are, come to an end.? In sleep, man forgets everything even if it is sweeter than the noblest thing/task.
Stanza:
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter, and leave, alone.
I know not how.
Explanation
In the given lines, the poet further explains the state of sleep. He says sleep dominates a person he forgets even -the most beautiful face, from which in normal conditions, he would not turn away his eye. He also forgets the most interesting book when sleep overpowers him. The poet further says that he enters sleep which is necessary and because of necessity he has to enter the field of sleep alone and has also to wake-up alone. The poet does- not know how this whole process takes place.
Stanza:
The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.
Explanation
In this concluding stanza again the poet compares sleep to tall trees. He says when he is in the grip of sleep, he feels as if the tall trees were rising more and more, spreading their shade. In the same way, the undergrowth or the greenery of the tall trees becomes hazy and cloudy. The shade of the tall trees presses him to go into a deep sleep. The layer above a layer of sleep comes upon him silently unless he is fully under the influence of sleep. He is forced to obey and hear what the sleep commands him. When he is fully dominated by sleep, he loses his way and becomes unaware of himself. Slumber is tantamount to death. He who is in sleep is unaware of himself and all the worldly things as he would be in death.
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